Halo Colonial Horizon
by SpaceCowboy2013
Summary: A UNSC Cruiser escaping a deadly battle with the Covenant Onslaught and performing the Cole Protocol jumps into the middle of the Cyrannus Sector. But will the Covenant onslaught destroy the Colonials and the UNSC before they destroy each other? (CANCELLED, FOCUSING ON HALO THE IMPERIAL WAR)
1. Chapter 1

_This idea has been bugging me forever and I still want to do it, so I will try it. My statements in my other story about Sins of A Galactic Empire being my last story are now false._

_I will continue SINS OF A GE without a doubt, but with the time I now have I want to try this story out._

_It is somewhat inspired by my original SINS story and Turrasta's epic Defiant._

_For the story, I will continue my tradition of making the UNSC more realistically advanced. (I mean it's the 26th century) It wont be drastic and all advances will be based off of real life theories and prototypes._

_So here we go. (Yes I have changed some facts, but not drastically, notably that the Outer Colonies are more, outer so to speak.)_

_UNSC Slipspace drives are more efficient and can go 20 light years a day and UNSC Marine armor is similar to those worn in Halo Reach with the full body armor and helmet._

**IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!**

**Hey everyone, I decided to make a few retcons after doing some research and suggestions by Turrasta**

**UNSC Archer Missiles have a yield of approximately 2 megaton per missile**

**My next edit or retcon would have to be one of the larger changes I could make to the Halo Universe, the MAC gun itself. I have always favored the mid range calcs for UNSC MAC guns in the whole lunacy of Spacbattles forums, as they make the most sense, however having worked them Out I decided to come out with my official take on MAC guns . MAC guns in my take fire smaller sized rounds at velocities that are comparable to realistic calculations. UNSC Frigate sized MACs on Frigates and Destroyers fire a 100 ton slug at 10,000 kilometers a second to deliver a force of 2,350 megatons per shot, still a shit ton. Heavy MACs like on cruisers and the **_**Prophesy**_** fire a 200 ton slug at a little bit over 10,000 kilometers a second with a force of around 4,000 megatons, quite a shit ton.**

**UNSC Rail gun slugs now are one ton in size and weight and when fired travel at around 7,000 kilometers a second.**

_**October 21st, 2527**_

_**Alpha Aurigae System**_

_**Location of Colony World Capella**_

_**122.2 Light Years from Earth**_

_**UNSC Marathon Class Cruiser**_

_**CG-320 Prophesy**_

Space.

The beautiful and serine sky in the Alpha Aurigae system was known for its proximity to several nearby nebulae which gave the system an expansive array of blue and white vistas of the gaseous clouds and made it quite a sight from the surface of the small UNSC Outer Colony world of Capella and its three million colonists.

What they could see above them now was pure hell as explosions of dying ships, fireballs of nuclear weapons, beams of energy weapons and streaks of magnetically accelerated slugs permeated the heavens as humanity desperately tried to hold a bloodthirty alien foe bent on their destruction at bay.

"Come about to heading three eight nine! Deflection negative twenty degrees. Target tango Red Thirteen!" Captain Scott Riley, a man aged forty three years with tanned skin (though looking not a day over thirty), a strong jaw and brown short cropped hair from the Inner Colony of Sigma Octanus all but yelled as the crew members at their consoles frantically held on as the 1,190 meter warship shook with the impact of a trio of lighter plasma pulses and the ship's engines flared white hot while the ship shot around to bring its main weapons to bare on its enemy.

"Armor in sections three and twelve in blocks eight and ten are down to fifty percent and we have hull breaches on decks five and thirteen. Sealing off sections" The young blonde haired man of thirty years named Lieutenant Derrick Ashcroft at the helm called aloud as the _Prophecy's _class B Fourth Generation Artificial Intelligence, "his" avatar that of a 18th century British Sea Admiral with a classic white wig and a saber in hand, FitzGibben, spoke with little emotion.

"Magnetic Accelerator Cannons One and Two are fully online, with a single 1000 ton heavy round loaded in each MAC and each are at 98 percent charge. Railgun batteries are all operational, however turret number four was knocked out with the last pulse laser barrage. All Archer Fusion Missile Pods are loaded and locking on."

"Range?" Riley asked as he watched yet another UNSC ship winked off of the display.

"_Damn the Covenant to hell."_

"100,000 Kilometers and closing sir. Target identified as Cruiser class. Target is lighting us up sir." FitzGibben spoke as the klaxon blared again.

"Light 'em up!" he roared as his brown eyes narrowed. "Fire Archer Pods A through F. Salvo Fire Railguns and calculate a time to target impact with MAC number one just before our Railguns hit. Then time our second MAC to hit as our Archer's hit."

"Yes sir!" the Lieutenant at WeapOps, Marcus Elroy, replied as the _Prophesy _sped past a group of dogfighting Covenant Seraphs and UNSC Longsword Interceptors, some from _Prophesy's_ own squadrons, as their ghostly missile contrails, streams of orange cannon fire and pulses of plasma and directed energy along with the flaming main drives lit up the space along with the explosions of blue balls of exploding plasma cores of dying Seraphs and flaming Longswords tumbling aimlessly through the void as the human Pilots desperately tried to hold the enemy from strafing the UNSC starships.

"Enemy preparing Plasma torpedo! Targets locked in!" Elroy sounded out as FitzGibbon confirmed while he assumed control of the ships array of 50mm Helilical Railcannon CIWS to swat two Seraphs out of the sky that slipped past the fighter screen before they could even attack.

The lateral lines of the 1200 meter bulbous teardrop like alien warship began to coalesce with electric energy as a deadly plasma torpedo which was capable of slicing through UNSC vessels like a hot knife through butter began to form.

"Fire!"

One of the Marathon Cruiser's twin heavy class two MAC guns, more powerful versions of the type fitted on Frigates and Destroyers that fired a heavier 200 ton round at 12,000km/sec over the lighter 100 ton variants, flashed with a discharge of countless amounts of energy and electricity as a streaking slug shot forth into the void.

The Covenant Cruiser could not hope to evade as it took just under eight and a half seconds for the slug to impact with countless hundreds of megatons of energy.

The shields of the Covenant Cruiser flashed in its typical grid like pattern as the immense opposing forces tried to overcome each other.

The Covenant's shields won out as the shot was deflected, but the ship was still knocked a mile off course as the _Prophesy's _twelve dual turreted Heavy Railguns lashed out, sending twenty four 2 ton projectiles at 7,500 kilometers a second.

The streaking white shells left comet like contrails as they too slammed into the powerful shields with a combined force of over two hundred megatons, draining them even more as they flashed in and out of existence.

As hundreds of Archer missiles sped away from the UNSC Cruiser, their enhanced reactive Ion drives quickly accelerating them to hundreds and hundreds of Gees, a Plasma torpedo shot away from the alien ship followed by a dozen blood red heavy pulse lasers.

The lasers cored into the thick 3 meter Titanium A and composite polarized Vandanium battleplating of the _Prophesy,_ melting though up to half the thickness of the plates they struck while one lucky shot turned a CIWS mount into molten slag.

The Archer missiles began to rapidly close the distance as their contrails crossed paths with the rocketing plasma torpedo as missiles began to be felled by the dozens thanks to the alien's pulse lasers switching to less powerful fast tracking firing modes.

Captain Riley watched with a mixture of awe and horror as the glowing orb of death and superheated magnetically contained plasma and gas streaked towards the cruiser.

"Go evasive!" he ordered as Lieutenant Ashcroft spun the ship onto a new heading, its engine cones burned white hot with the effort of moving a 2,500,000 ton warship away from the torpedo, for as much good as the crew and Riley knew it would do.

The torpedo of course adjusted it course.

"_How in the hell do they do that?"_ he thought to himself as he turned to FitzGibbon.

"Launch two Fury Nuclear Missiles. Target the torpedo and detonate at the zero mark."

"Yes sir." The AI answered.

Two Fury Tactical nuclear missiles shot away from the _Prophesy _with the help of their magnetic launch tubes before streaking away in fiery plumes as they rocketed towards the plasma torpedo, now a scant 20,000 kilometers distant and only seconds away from impact as the Missiles quickly adjusted their course with input from FitzGibbons

At 10,000 kilometers the two missiles and the torpedo neared a scant mile from each other as the missiles detonated.

Two suns of a combined 60 megatons flashed into existence, briefly blinding the EMP hardened sensors of the Marathon before turning into an expanding ball of plasma and gas, the plasma torpedo all but dissipated as its magnetic field was destroyed.

Relief seemed to radiate throughout the bridge as the Archer missiles, their numbers reduced by half by the Covenant's point defense lasers, began to pummel the weakened shields.

Each individual Archer missile carried a fusion based warhead with a directed shaped charge which allowed their payload of two megatons to be directed into a jet of plasma that was capable of slicing through a section of armor plating on all but the toughest ships hulls in one or two hits.

Over one hundred Archers hit the weakened shield of the Covenant Cruiser, covering them with fire as they finally collapsed in a spark of electricity, allowing several dozen to blow huge chunks out of the smooth yet resilient hull.

"Another Plasma torpedo is incoming," FitzGibbons warned before he was cut off by more pulse lasers stitching the _Prophesy's _hull, several small puffs of air signifying two hull breaches from previously weakened and damaged armor sections.

"Fire MAC number two." Riley ordered as the ship shuddered with more impacts from Pulse lasers and he stole a glance at the battlenet to attain how the battle was going.

Not good.

The UNSC was driving the Covenant back, but at the cost of a staggering 34 ships to the alien's 30, and the UNSC fleet had outnumbered the Covenant fleet 123 to 67 ships at the start of the battle, two gigantic collections of warships by the UNSC's pre-war standards.

The number two MAC at the bow of the cruiser flashed like its predecessor, sending its deadly payload into the Covenant ship now 90,000 kilometers distant.

The Covenant captain and crew, sensing their doom, fired every last laser and plasma cannon they had as the previously fired plasma torpedo and the streaking shooting star like MAC Slug shot past each other.

The heavy MAC round tore into the alien ship with catastrophic results dead center on its sea creature like bow.

The first 400 meters of the bow simply ceased to be as the cruisers amidships were also torn apart in a cascade of secondary explosions before the aft engine compartment blew out in a jet of plasma.

The running lights and weapons ports that UNSC captains had come to fear grew cold and dark as the remnants of the ship began to tumble through space as it tore itself apart with secondary explosions.

The crew cheered like madmen as Riley allowed himself a smile.

"Second Plasma torpedo has dissipated. We are receiving message from the Flagship."

"Put it on screen." Riley ordered as the large viewscreen at the front of the bridge switched to show the image of Admiral Preston Cole on the bridge of his flagship, one of the new and first of its kind Everest Class Battlecruisers.

The man's worn but defiant features did nothing to hide the intellect and commanding man that wore them. Cole's legendary status in the UNSC had landed him as the commander of the most of the UNSC's fleets in the Outer colonies in the effort to hold the alien menace, not two years old, at bay.

Riley had served under him from day one at the first Battle to Retake Harvest and the _Prophesy _had been part of the initial Task Force X-Ray when they had engaged a massive 5 kilometer long Covenant Super Dreadnaught which had turned twelve of the forty ships in the task force into melted bits of space debris.

Now his command had been tasked by HIGHCOM to do whatever it took to defeat the Covenant and hold them at bay while the UNSC began to fortify UNSC worlds and turn humanity's titanic industrial might into a warmachine, which it was fast accomplishing.

However that did not mean that Cole's fleet would be successful, already the crew of the _Prophesy _and the other members of the fleet had watched dozens upon dozens of UNSC ships be sliced open by plasma lances and burned to atoms by plasma torpedoes. Worse still he had seen ten worlds and outposts simply turned to uninhabitable balls of glass.

"How is your squadron holding up?" Cole asked as Riley gave a quick look to the officer manning the _Prophesy's_ complex sensor suite, a woman named Olivia Redding. She quickly pulled up the status of the three ships that had broken off with Riley once the main fleet battle line had split up into battle squadrons, Two of the new Midlothian class Destroyers and a Frigate.

The Frigate _Bombay_ had simply been neatly sliced in two by two plasma torpedoes while one of the Destroyers, the _Tribute_ had been heavily damaged by continuous pulse laser fire from three Covenant Frigates and forced to pull out trailing debris and the occasional lifeless body.

The second destroyer named _Thebes_ was still engaged with alien fighters but had managed to take down a Covenant light destroyer and fight off the alien frigates assailing the _Tribute_ with the help of the_Prophesy_ and her Longsword squadron, taking another alien warship and several fighters out in the process and allowing the wounded ship to pull out.

"The _Tribute _is out of action and is trailing debris and venting atmosphere and _Bombay_ went down with all but 20 of her crew making it to life pods." Riley stated as his heart sank while thinking of those service members families back home.

"Im sorry Riley, they did their duty and you did all you could. The Covenant fleet appears to be backing out, but as we all know they will attack again and in greater numbers." Cole responded in his usual calm and controlled demeanor as the bridge of his ship shook a little from combat.

"What are your orders?" Riley asked as the flight operations informed him that their Longswords were returning to base to re arm and refuel their reactors with coolant as the _Prophesy _and the _Thebes _reformed and began to turn back to the colony of Capella as twisted and melted wreckage of UNSC ships and the all but obliterated shells of Covenant ships floated past.

"We are going to reform the battle line at the Planet's fifth Langrage Point ," he said as the viewscreen showed the point of interest and the ships that were assigned. "And we will hold the aliens off as long as we can until the Civilians are evacuated, which should be in about two hours."

As the Marathon Cruiser and its smaller Heavy Destroyer escort came closer and closer to one of the colony's two lifeless moons while the green and blue world began to grow larger in the viewscreen the lights of the fellow surviving UNSC warships began to be seen as they too regrouped to defend the next attack.

The _Prophesy_ and her escort were also forced to shoot down several large pieces of floating debris with their pulse lasers, part of the anti missile and fighter laser defense net that was standard on all UNSC ships and stations and could if used by more than one laser mount burn through the shields on Seraphs and their hulls in around five seconds.

"What is the situation groundside?" Riley asked, sitting back into the captains seat as he did so.

Cole nodded to an aide off camera as he replied with a thoughtful tone.

"Our Marines are holding the forces that the Covenant managed to land at bay, but they are in close quarters combat so we can only provide limited orbital or air support. We need to buy them all the time we can."

He paused before finishing, " I have a plan to do so."

_**Capella**_

_**312th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit)**_

"Get down!" Corporal Strauss's Sergeant's voice screamed through the Mike inside his air tight helmet as another plasma mortar screamed through the air with the hiss of superheated air towards the Marine's positions amongst the ruins of a apartment complex that ran along a small spillway. Among that spillway were clusters of bombed out buildings which were formally the downtown of the capitol city of the colony with two hundred thousand residents.

Strauss leapt back into cover as heat washed over his position, making him thankful for the sealed helmet all Marines wore along with the heavier tan M-52 BDU the Marines used which covered nearly all of his body and consisted of a thin layer of Titanium A over Scaled Ceramics and Carbon Nano Tubes and had small electric servos powered by fusion batteries that self recharged placed throughout the joints and back that allowed each Marine to have greatly increased strength, making carrying 200 pounds feel like 20, as well as faster running speeds and helping increase each Marine's already impressive stamina.

The plasma made his visor polarize for a second as the earth rocked for a second as burnt and melted chunks of instacrete fell around him.

Cursing the Earth born soldier checked his HUD to see if all of the IFF signals from his squad and the three others present were active.

Thankfully they were.

"Strauss, get the fuck up here and kill these fuckers!" his Sergeant, a fiery woman from the Inner Colonies of African descent ironically named Ludmilla, roared over the mike as the roar of rifle fire picked up again from the rooms next to him and above him as Ludmilla got to her window feet away and fired at the aliens beyond.

Returning to his position he gripped his MA6 and leaned out of the window to see yet another wave of stubby dog like Grunts led by six blue armored 8ft tall reptilian Elites and a Red armored Major Elite brandishing a plasma repeater accompanied by several Jackal Snipers brandishing those strange projectile carbines and two phalanxes worth of shield armed Jackals, all of them outlined in red on his helmet's HUD.

"_Like I need something to tell me they want to kill me."_

The aliens howled in their awful guttural languages as the grunts ran like a pack of hyenas over the rubble strewn street and past abandoned shells of cars.

Plasma began to come at the Marine's positions like a wave as Strauss, a 23 year old who in his two years of service in Admiral Cole's fleet had probably fought in more battles than most soldiers in modern times, shouldered his rifle and fired at the leading Grunts 100 meters away.

The MA6's electrical charge ignited the advance propellant of the first 8mm round of the twelve stacked end to end in each of the weapon's three barrels affixed in a triangle within the barrel shroud, sending it screaming at 1700 meters a second out of the rifle in a complex electro-thermal-chemical reaction as the propellant turned into a jet of superhot gases.

And directly into the rebreather covered face of a Grunt, removing the alien's head in a spray of blue colored blood.

Clicking the selector to three round burst Strauss stepped out cover, flinching slightly as a plasma bolt struck the window ceil next to his face.

He sighted on a charging Elite minor demo that had one of his squadmates pinned down and fired.

The first trio of rounds made the personal shields of the Elite flash and the reptilian stumble, also stopping its charge and fire on Strauss's fellow marines.

Just as the Elite let out one of its warbling war cries Strauss pulled the trigger two more times in quick succession, knocking the Elite back once more as its shields collapsed with an electrical spark.

The enraged Elite raised its Plasma Repeater and sent a stream of super heated bolts at him, forcing him to spin to the next window as the bolts tore through where he had just been and turning the instacrete wall behind into molten powder.

Quickly returning to a firing position he re-acquired the elite and with yet one more burst as the alien tried to dodge away, sent three 8mm hypersonic tungsten rounds through its chest cavity, splaying it open and sending a fountain of purple gore into the air.

Roar of the Marines weapons reached a fever pitch as two Marines fell from multiple hits to their armor, burning through the resilient metal and ceramics and melting soft flesh and organs beneath. The men died agonizing yet quick deaths.

Bodies of Grunts began to pile up as the Jackal snipers began to pin the Marines down as the shield armed Jackals began to form a line and began to advance under the cover provided by the snipers and the twenty elites and remaining grunts.

Forced to pull back to the next room Strauss say the Marine occupying the room curse and drop back with a thud as one of those radioactive slugs from the Covenant snipers struck him square in the chest.

The man, a Private 1st Class named Williamson who had just joined the squad and was the squad machine gunner, simply grunted "Ouch" as the composite ceramics and titanium armored chest plate stopped the slug, which flattened itself against it.

Strauss didn't bother asking if he was alright as the man simply gave him a thumbs up, grabbed his M2LMG SAW, a sleek weapon that spat a stream of 9.5 millimeter slugs at 1000 meters a second, had a 200 round ammo box and was more than known for cutting down waves of grunts single handedly; and sent a long roaring burst of fire in return.

"How much longer do we have to hold out for?" Williamson asked as he and Strauss gunned down another Elite and one of the Jackals.

"Hell if I know, I think that the last of the civilians will be loaded on their transports in the hour." Strauss yelled over the mike as a shout from above and a whoosh of fire followed by a Jackhammer shoulder fired missile impact a portion of the Jackal phalanx, now only 30 yards away and advancing like a slow moving wall of death. The 105mm anti armor high explosive shaped charge all but erased a large section of the shield phalanx, throwing up chunks of meat as the now open line and exposed sides of the Jackals were systematically slain.

Just as it seemed the Marines were going to win out the all too familiar sound of a Wraith emanated from around the pile of rubble that was a collapsed thirty story building that had been blown apart by UNSC artillery fire to snuff out a sniper nest.

"Enemy Wraiths! Two of them coming around the building!" One of the Marines on the roof either acting as a machine gunner, Sniper or Designated Marksman shouted over the BattleNet as the two oblique blue beetle like hover tanks came hovering around the said ruin and immediately opened up on the Human defenders with their plasma cannons and mortars.

The howling sound of an arching ball of condensed hell fire whistled through the air as Strauss and Williamson sent a quick burst from their weapons before diving back into whatever cover they could find within the building.

Strauss felt his gut rise into his throat as he closed his eyes and prayed he would not get hit, quickly thinking of all his family and loved ones, most of whom were disapproving of him enlisting in the first place but still supported him.

The air around him became hot, even through his armor as his visor was forced to polarize from the brightness of the plasma.

The Plasma mortar slammed into one the fourth floor of the complex with an earth rattling impact as Williamson's and Strauss's teeth rattled.

Two Marine' Icons abruptly disappeared from the display on the side of his HUD and another's icon turned blazing red to indicate serious injury, something that was proven by a horrible sounding scream of a man dying.

The two began to move back to their firing positions as a single gunshot from a Pistol sounded out from upstairs, and the screaming cut off.

"Oh my god, holy shit…" the younger Marine began to breath as Strauss felt like he needed to rip off his helmet and throw up.

Swallowing his fear and ignoring it like he had been trained at boot camp and Enhanced Marine Combat And Zero G Training, as well as through the horrors he had already seen on Harvest and three other now dead Worlds, he slapped the back of Williamson's head.

"Snap out of it, we don't have time for emotions!" he barked as the younger Marine paused for a second before nodding.

"Yes Strauss. Lets kill these assholes."

The Covenant Infantry, their faltering assault now strengthened by the arrival of the tanks, began their advance again under the cover of the Wraiths' plasma cannons which sent streams of plasma into the building that stitched the already almost burned walls and forced the Marines to keep their heads down.

"Retreat! Fall back to the landing zone! We are getting out of here!" Ludmilla's voice yelled as two Jackhammer Missiles slammed into the trailing Wraith, disabling it as its left hoverpod gave out and it crashed to the ground before its reacter went critical, consuming the alien death machine in blue fire that took out thirty grunts and five nearby elites.

"Those were my last two!" the Anti Armor specialist announced as Williamson and Strauss, after sending another three bursts at the enemy apiece and ending the existence of another elite and two jackals, bolted down the debris strewn hallway as plasma lapped at their heals.

"Where do we go!" Williamson asked as the Marines, all remaining ten of them, regrouped at the courtyard at the center of the apartments before Ludmilla waved them on.

"Go to the extraction point! We have no where else to retreat to. Haul ass!" she answered as the roar of an Elite could be heard down the very hallway they had just came down.

"Shit! It's a mile away!" Strauss cried as he and the Marines ran as fast as their legs would take them out of the complex, past burnt out cars, over craters and by abandoned Military Warthogs and equipment.

They ran for minutes in a dead sprint with the speed of Olympic athletes thanks to their powered servos in their armor as Longswords streaked overhead strafing unseen targets and a looming form of a Covenant Corvette peaked over the top of one of the nearby mountain ranges with its sea creature like form bristling with weapon ports.

Strauss's heart felt like it was about to explode when they finally saw their salvation, the now almost empty river side space port.

The last civilian ship was now leaving the atmosphere escorted by the shrinking forms of a pair of Longswords as the last remaining Marines planetside were boarding an awaiting flight of twenty Pelicans and two POD Heavy Lift Vehicles.

There had clearly been quite a battle for control of the LZ, as hundreds of bodies of aliens of all kinds and classes littered the three avenues of approach, as well as several burnt out Scorpion Light MBTs ,Warthogs and Cougar IFVs along with at least a dozen limb bodies of fallen Marines.

The remaining Marines present almost shot them as they flung themselves over a crashed Banshee that had clearly fallen victim to several deployed 35mm Anti air cannons.

"Don't shoot! Friendlies coming through!" Ludmilla yelled over the com as two bullets kicked up dirt by Williamson's and Strauss's feet.

The jumpy Marines clearly were on edge as the squad ran past a lone Cougar IFV on the perimeter to an assigned Pelican.

The Pilot was still in the start up sequence as Strauss got on one knee to catch his breath, the others joined him.

"Wha…whats the sitrep?" Ludmilla asked a nearby Lieutenant as the ground shook with the collapse of a nearby skyscraper that sent clouds of dust into the air.

The Lieutenant in charge slung his GR-2 Gauss Rifle over his shoulder, and past a noticeable scorch mark on his chest armor from a plasma hit that must have been from a lighter plasma pistol, and walked over to Ludmilla while a M1000 Grizzly II MBT, the larger ,more powerful, better armored tank that came loaded with a 105 mm Railgun main gun, a 20mm LAAG, Twin Jackhammer Missile Pods and two fifties. (imagine a Predator MBT From C&C3 and an M1A2 Abrams combined). It was a much more powerful, larger cousin of the lighter nearly retired Scorpion and was used by most Marine MEUs these days. The Tank began to move toward the remaining POD HLT as the other POD HLT began to light off in a teeth rattling roar.

"We are holding out, but our Wolverine mobile Anti air Vehicles and, save for that last Cougar all of our IFVs have all been pulled out and that Grizzly over there is our last tank on world, but we should all be dusting off shortly…." The man was interrupted as one of the Marine's manning the perimeter yelled into the TAC COM as a huge explosion from a nearby building.

"Contact!"

The Covenant that had previously attacked Strauss and his squad had clearly caught up with them, and were reinforced.

"Shit!" Strauss said aloud as he ran to cover as plasma began to rain on the LZ, plasma, Needler rounds and green radioactive projectiles shooting past him all the way.

Throwing himself into the cover as the Leuitenant and the rest of his squad did the same.

"Contacts, more like a horde," the Leuitenant, his IFF identifying him as Derrick Murray said aloud jokingly as he raised his GR-2, An automatic Gauss Rifle that shot its magazine of 45 7mm tungton rounds at 3000 meters a second and was given to squad's designated marksmen, and fired on a couple of screaming doglike grunts which turned into sprays of gore in return.

Strauss and the others opened up as the drum of dozens of MA6's, four SAWs, six GR-2 Gauss Rifles and an Automatic Grenade launcher rattled the ground as Covenant were cut down by the dozens.

"We are leaving now!" Murray roared as two Marines fell with plasma ripping through them.

Elites decided to join in as their grunt cannon fodder was again proving to be almost useless in the face of the Marines. Plasma from their deadly repeaters took out yet two more men down and forced Strauss to the ground to avoid a stream of energy.

Rising again to continue battle he emptied his ammo strip into the gut of a Minor Demos from 30 yards out, cutting the alien in two in the process, pressed the reload button on the side of the rifle and slipped in another fresh ammo strip as the butt of the rifle opened, launching the spent strip out, and closed to allow him to place the strip that also held the disposable end to complete the electrical circuit for the firing process in the back of the weapon's three barrels before snapping shut again.

"Wraiths!" Williamson yelled as four of the all too familiar alien tanks appeared down the end of the avenue some 1000 meters away and let loose their weapons.

One of them was one of those new Purple Wraiths that had a Particle Cannon that replaced its Plasma Mortar and had given UNSC Armor an actual fight as up till this point the UNSC simply owned the Covenant whenever armored warfare took place.

The Particle Cannon Wraith let loose short purple pulse of pure energy that slammed into the lone Cougar Infantry Fighting Vehicle that had been hammering the Alien troopers with its twin 50mm auto cannons.

The beam hit the Composite Coblhiem Titanium armor of the Cougar and burned through. The pulse all but tore through the lighter armored vehicle as it exploded fantasitaclly, the top small turret that held the auto cannons shooting thirty feet into the air and landing a little too close to Strauss for comfort with a clang.

The Grizzly II that had been moving to be loaded onto the POD HLV upon seeing this instead stopped, and turned its main gun towards the Particle Cannon Wraith responsible.

"Firing!" its gunner calmly called out over the com as the Marines got down.

A tremendous hypersonic boom sent a blast of air past as a 105 mm dart effortlessly tore through the Wraith in an instant, shattering it in a mighty explosion.

Strauss was thankful his helmet blocked out most of the sound as being this close would make you go deaf for sure.

The other opposing Wraiths shifted their fire to the M1000 Grizzly as with a howl from its hydrogen turbine engine evaded a plasma mortar from one of the remaining alien tanks while several bright green fuel rod missiles from a Hunter pair was merely absorbed by the thick composite armor on the turret.

The 20mm cannon coaxil auto cannon thundered, swiftly cutting down the hulking alien horrors as the sickly hive of orange worms exploded and dripped from holes heavy alien armor.

The tank then shifted its turret again to aim at the offending Wraiths which tried to maneuver out of the way as Strauss and the Marines again braced for the thunderous hypersonic crack.

A second Wraith exploded as the Lieutenant emptied his Gauss rifle into a Jackals torso, turning it into a spray of gore.

"Get to the Pelicans go go go!" Murray roared as the Marines disengaged and ran to the Pelicans as the human tank sped up the ramp of the awaiting HLV which immediately took off.

Their position overrun more Marines fell as the Pelicans began to lift off one by one.

An unlucky Pelican took a direct hit from one of the remaining Wraiths, vaporizing it and the men and women onboard as the fiery remains crashed back onto the ground.

Strauss, Williamson and the Lieutenant turned around at the back of their Pelican and opened up on two charging Elites, taking it down as the last remaining man in his squad stormed up the ramp.

"Lets fucking dust off now!" the Pilot's anxious voice roared over the com, slightly muffled by the roar of Pelicans lifting off and two of the dropships banking around and cutting through lines of Covenant with their 40mm Chin guns before banking up and away.

Strauss was about to turn and run into the troop bay when a huge invisible force grabbed him and lifted a bewildered Strauss into the air and ripped his rifle from his hands.

"What the fuck!" he roared as the air in from of him shimmered to show a decloaking Elite Zealot, its white armor contrasting with its grey ugly skin as its mandibles let loose a roar that sent dribbles of spit onto his visor.

"Fuck You!" he screamed as he gave the alien a vicious right hook straight to its mandibles, giving a satisfying crack as alien's lower mandible snapped leaving the Elite in a slight state of shock, and Strauss's gauntleted hand in pain.

Normally the strongest Humans _at best_ had very little chance of surviving a fist fight with an elite for more than twenty seconds, but that did not mean that humans could not injure one or get a few good shots in.

Strauss's heart caught in his throat as another decloaking Elite grabbed a enraged Murray and ran him through with a blinding white double bladed energy sword.

Murray's dying last words echoed on the COM as Strauss was flung through the air like a toy.

"Switch to thermals."

There were apparently more of these Elites as the Marines in the troop bay began firing at several more unseen targets as he hit the ground with a thud some full twenty yards from the Pelican.

He had lost his sidearm long ago, leaving him helpless as another sword wielding Elite appeared over him ready to slice him in two.

"So this is how it ends." He thought as the 8ft tall beast reared back to deliver the blow.

But it never came.

The top of the alien's head separated from its body in a spray of blood.

Over the battlenet he heard a calm voice, "_Get to the fleet, I will rendezvous with the team there. I'm helping these Marines, Fifty One out_."

He heard heavy footfalls before an 8ft tall, …thing came out of the smoke as Strauss got to his feet.

If he had a gun he didn't know if he would have shot it or not.

It was a humanoid like thing covered from head to toe in wicked olive green armor whose head was hidden by a full helmet and a reflective golden visor. In its hands was a modified MA6 that had its typical underslung 30mm Grenade Launcher replaced with a cut down M90 Shotgun Master Key.

It strode casually towards him as a calm surprisingly young man's voice came through the helmeted thing.

"Get down."

Strauss, for reasons he would come to humorously question, obliged.

The thing then Spun around with its weapon raised in a blur of speed and sent a long burst into the smoke.

The bullets hit something as an enraged Elite appeared and fired its Plasma Rifle in return.

Strauss watched with his jaw dropped as the being _dodged_ the plasma bolt in a blur of superhuman speed.

The Armored Man fired a long burst that cut through the personal shields and torso of the alien with a spray of blood.

Two more Elites came out of the dust and smoke charging the behemoth with challenging roars and Plasma Swords drawn.

The man held his ground and unloaded two quick 8 gauge shotgun blasts into one of the elites, batting away its shields with the first and slaying it with the second shot as the other Elite, having closed the gap in an instant took a vicious stab at the being.

The thing again dodged in a blur of speed and in one fluid motion, one handed its rifle and with the other grabbed the alien's hand and twisted.

To Strauss's utter amazement the Elite roared in pain as its wrist snapped from being twisted past the breaking point and its sword fell to the ground and deactivated. The man simply pivoted and used the elite's momentum against it, picked the huge alien up with apparent minimal effort and threw it down to the concrete with a thud, the Elite actually crying out in pain as it hit the concrete hard.

Before it could get up the being put an 8 Gauge shell into its cranium just in time for yet more Elites to come and attack.

A throbbing pulse of plasma from three Plasma Rifles stitched the ground around the super soldier as the super soldier returned a fire.

A long burst cut two Elites down, their heads burst open from perfectly placed headshots.

The man raced to the side, fired the last of his MA6's ammo strip and in an amazing show of grace and speed reloaded.

It seemed as if every shot was perfect, every time his rifle spoke another Elite died. And the Elites could now not care at all about him or the other Marines, as they all seemed to have their attention on the small battle before them.

The soldier leapt high into the air to avoid another burst of lapping plasma, spun around in mid air and shot yet another Elite that came to challenge the soldier, flipped back over and landed behind the cover of a burnt out Warthog.

Just then two plasma blasts hit the soldier right in the chest delivered from a Spec Ops Elite's Plasma Repeater.

The soldier slightly shook with the impact and seemed totally un phased, though it did drop in cover and threw a grenade over its head in return.

Strauss was more than a little impressed that the armor only had two small burn marks and little else.

"_I want whatever the hell he is wearing."_ He thought to himself.

Standard Marine armor could take one maybe two direct hits in the same area from Plasma rounds, though afterwards you would be wearing a burnt and half melted slag and have a nice sunburn under it. ODST armor was of course more durable, but he had never heard of a Marine, Army or ODST take anything more than four hits and live.

It was a change from when he had fought Innies who had to use either heavy weapons, Stolen UNSC weapons, or just a storm of fire to pierce the armor suit of Marines.

The supersoldier, apparently not satisfied with the cover after his hits, reached with one had under the chassis of the Warthog, and with a no apparent effort flipped the vehicle onto its side and sent a long burst of fire at advancing aliens before reaching onto its belt and pulling out a smoke grenade, tossing it nearby.

As the wall of smoke appeared Strauss got to his feat and ran to retrieve his rifle, tired of being a liability and useless.

However the heavy fast footfalls and jogged at a speed that Strauss would have thought of as a run, before the supersoldier grabbed him and with little effort hefted him up in one arm almost like a toy.

"Are you alright?"he, she or it asked.

Strauss shook his head as he looked at his reflection in the visor, noticing the dried smattering of alien blood on the side of the helmet.

"Unless I hit my head too hard and I am seeing things Im good."

To his surprise the being chuckled.

"Alright, lets get the fuck out of here."

Before he even finished they had bolted into the bay of the hovering Pelican with what felt like the speed of a car, and before the now stunned Marines in his squad.

The man put Strauss down as the Pelican's bay doors closed and the pilot immediately lifted off.

"Thanks." Strauss said as the thing sat down in the seat next to him, the seat groaning under obvious weight, while the man sitting was still a goof foot taller than Strauss.

"What the fuck are you.?" Sergeant Ludmilla asked.

"Spartan 051," it replied curtly before pausing as if in deep thought. "But you can call me Kurt" he finished as the Pelican broke atmosphere while the pilot came over the intercom.

"We are rendezvousing with the fleet in twenty minutes, but it looks like the Covenant fleet is back. And from my scanners it looks like our extra passenger left a 30 megaton surprise for the Covenant groundside."

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Slipspace ruptures, lots of them." Lieutenant Ashcroft announced as space 300,000 kilometers distant seemed to open and ripple like a fantastic blue mirage.

"Battlestations!" Riley ordered without pause as the klaxons once again blared throughout the ship.

The UNSC battleline held firm as the eighty four ships from Frigates, destroyers, Marathon and older Halcyon Cruisers, and a single Everest Class Battlecruiser powered their weapons to maximum output and their engine cones flared white while the fleet's six carriers and with three frigate escorts kept their distance and launched their fighter wings. Also at the rear of the formation was a single Phoenix Class Marine Assault Ship that was formally one of the many colony ships that the UNSC had converted into Planetary assault ships to hold thousands of Marines , Tanks, armored Vehicles, equipment and a firebase.

"Ninety Two contacts sir." FitzGibbons announced as Riley felt the stomachs of the collective bridge crew sink with those words.

The UNSC Fleet, especially under the command of the legendary Admiral Cole could probably take on that number and possibly win, but they would loose nearly every ship doing so.

To make matters worse the carriers were loaded down with refugees and were hampered with having to protect the slipspace capable civilian ships behind the fleet.

"What is the status of the evacuation?"

"Complete, but we have several transports some ten minutes out from rendezvous." Ashcroft replied as the holo screen showed the deadly forms of feared Covenant warships, Corvettes, Frigates, Destroyers, carriers and cruisers and a three thousand meter long Reverence Supercruiser as their lines and weapons ports flashed with energy that could devastate worlds.

"We have a message from the admiral." FitzGibbons said as a wing of Longswords shot past the bridge to engage the advance elements of Covenant fleet."

_**UNSC Everest**_

_**Everest Class Battlecruiser**_

Admiral Cole's hardened features studied the composition of the approaching Covenant with a keen eye searching for anything that could be used as a advantage for him.

"Enemy will enter weapons range in ten minutes." His first Lieutenant spoke from him station while the docking bay showed one of the last Pelicans to evacuate Capella landing in the hangar bay.

"ONI Blue Team is aboard sir." The ship's AI announced as the voice of the team leader came on the ShipCOM.

"This is Spartan 117, we are all here and accounted for minus one. Mission was successful" the voice of one of ONI's and the UNSC's prized secrets announced.

After Harvest Cole's fleet command had been briefed about one of ONI Section III's secret projects named the Spartan Program. Cole had seen a lot over his long career, but this was something even he was shocked at.

He had seen these super soldiers do things that only a fiction writer could think of. From singlehandedly holding back Covenant assaults to assassinating High Value targets these super soldiers had saved the lives of several thousand under his command and perhaps a million civilians. About half of what they did and who they were was still classified even to Cole, but he had a feeling that he would not want to know.

"Minus one?" he asked.

"Spartan 051 took a separate transport after assisting a Pelican and a squad of Marines in fighting off a force of Special Operations Elites. It should be the last transport to leave the colony." 117 replied.

Cole turned to the sensor officer who pulled up a display showing the holographic representation of the pelican as it pulled away from the planet.

His eyes immediately narrowed in concern.

There was no way they could make it to the fleet before the enemy was among them.

He had no intention to fight the Covenant any longer than he had to, especially with all the civilians.

"I cant hold out for any longer than I intend to. The evacuation hampers my options." Cole responded as the holographic representation of the Spartan's helmet nodded in agreement.

"I understand sir."

"Im not going to leave them, but by all accounts someone will have to meet them halfway, and both will have to run the gauntlet of fire." He added.

"Sir enemy at 200,000 kilometers!" the XO announced.

"I will send them an escort and assign a ship for pickup." Cole nodded as the Supersoldier gave the affirmative and left the Admiral to his business."

Looking at the 3-D representation of the battle space one more time Admiral Preston Cole gave out his orders.

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"He wants us to do what?" Lieutenant Ashcroft nearly shouted in surprise as he spun around from his consol to look at Captain Riley to make sure he had heard correctly.

"He wants the fleet save for the Carriers to form into battle formation with no less than five miles of separation between each ship." Scott read of from the report.

"Does he not realize we will have no room to maneuver much less be one gigantic target for the Covenant?" the Lieutenant asked with sarcasm.

"Im sure he has a reason for It and I think I know why," the captain answered as he set down the data pad.

"You heard the orders lets get them done!" Riley barked as the crew blinked and rushed to get their orders done.

The _Prophesy _slid into position near the fore of the fleet as the other human warships maneuvered into their respective positions, creating a tight pyramidal formation eighty kilometers wide and eighty kilometers tall with a depth of ten miles.

The UNSC cruisers, all twenty six of them, formed in the center of the formation with the _Everest _at the center and slightly behind the lead ships.

"Enemy single ships are coming in mass, Longsword squadrons engaging." FitzGibbons Avatar announced as tiny explosions far in the distance announced the zero gravity dogfight as the Covenant probed their defenses.

"How are our squadrons doing?" Riley asked.

"We have multiple Kills already, but one of ours is damaged and is RTB." Elroy replied.

One of the few areas that the UNSC actually outclassed the Covenant it seemed was in the field of fighter craft.

UNSC pilots were well adapt, trained and equipped to perform the intricate tight turns coupled with Zero G maneuvers required to defeat the more advanced yet lesser designed Seraphs in good ratios as the telescopic arrays showed A Longsword from the _Prophesy's_ own squadron tight on the tail of the teardrop shaped alien craft before batting its shields down with 60mm Railcannon fire before peppering the Seraph's thin hull, severing a plasma line and turning the fighter into a smear in space as the Longsword pilot's wingmate spun his angular fighter on its X-Axis to jam a AGM missile up another Seraphs plasma drive.

"Orders from _Everest_ and our squadron," FitzGibbons announced while the lead elements of the fleet engaged several squads of Seraphs with their Helix Defense Guns.

"Yes?"

"Our fighters are to disengage and escort a Pelican that was late on evacuating."

"Twenty One Longswords for One Pelican? What the hell is on that thing?" Riley asked as he kept his eyes on the approaching Alien fleet.

"_What in God's name could be on that Pelican?"_

_**Reverence Class Supercruiser**_

_**Divine Justice**_

_**Third Fleet of Glorious Consequence**_

Luro Taralumee frowned as his Seraphs were for the most part held back by the human's fighters.

The heathen's fleet was positioned between the system's fourth primary, which was where their colony was, and the colony world's main satellite.

Luro Taralumee had spent the last two and a half years fighting the disease calling itself humanity. He had overseen the glassing and cleansing of four worlds of the humans and had engaged their fleet in battle three times, each time winning.

However this was the first time he would be facing serious resistance.

The bridge buried deep inside of the vast warship was alive with never ending activity as the crew gave statuses from their respective stations.

"Fleetmaster the fleet is nearing weapons range." Luro's weapons officer Deka spoke from his consol while Luro glared at the gathering of human ships on the viewer that dominated much of the front of the bridge.

He hated the humans with every fiber of his being as was decreed by the holy prophets. However having read the reports from the actions against one of their fleets at the world known as Harvest he knew that the humans were able to put up a helacious fight and come on top. Their weapons, though primitive, were still somewhat useful and from the reports and conclusions most shipmasters drew were that one of the only things they had at a disadvantage were their ships lack of energy shielding.

Taking note of the drifting hulks of several Covenant ships from the last battle, their hulls twisted and blown apart, Luro clicked his mandibles before turning to face the viewscreen.

"Order all ships to advance in a staggered line. Ships that begin to loose their shielding are to halt and rotate to the rear to allow their systems to recharge. Have our Corvettes attempt to flank the enemy from below. " he ordered as the crew of mainly Sanghelli carried out his orders with haste and drilled professionalism, though the Unggoy did so out of their usual fear of reprisal.

"For the Great Journey!"

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Enemy will be in optimal range in a minute." Lieutenant Ashcroft said as Riley kept a firm grasp of the edge of his captain's seat while watching as the Covenant began to advance in the staggered line formation that they liked so much.

"Their Corvettes are pulling ahead and below the fleet." FitzGibbons stated as the screen shifted to show the icons of the smallest ships in the alien fleet.

"They are going to try and flank us from below." The captain finished before the AI, which nodded in return.

"Sir we are receiving new orders from _Everest_, reads that all ships are to reverse thrust the moment the enemy is in range." the woman manning the Coms, 2nd Lieutenant Awtry announced.

Riley nodded.

"Prepare to cut thrust and reverse. Status on weapons?"

"All green sir. MACs are at 98 percent charge and Railguns are all locked in and targeting. Remaining Archer supplies stand at 80 percent, all missile pods are hot. CIWS are all charged and loaded."

"Engines?"

"Running smoothly. The Reactor is at 80 percent and holding." answered FitzGibbens.

"_God help us."_

_**UNSC Everest**_

"Enemy in range in ten seconds." The resident ship's AI named Frost, who generally took on the avatar of a amorphous snowflake announced as the Covenant ships grew larger in larger on the screen, their weapons glowing with untold amounts of power that he had seen more times than he could remember in the past several years burn worlds and ships to atoms.

Cole swallowed the fear as the fleet neared the zero mark.

Cole turned to the AI, "Frost, slave all ship's AI to my command."

"Yes sir."

"Sir!" the man at the weapon's station called out, "The enemy is in range!"

"All ships are locked in sir. Energy spikes from Covenant ships detected, plasma torpedoes are charging."

"Full reverse! Course correction point nine eight!" Cole ordered as he gripped the railing.

The _Everest_ shuddered and groaned as the battlecruiser's engines, firing at full reverse thrust and burning white hot, struggled to stop the ship and reverse its momentum.

The UNSC fleet seemed to halt in space for an agonizing amount of time as the Covenant fleet surged ahead like sharks smelling blood. The UNSC ships finally began to move "backwards" relative to the enemy as Cole looked at the viewscreen to see the enemy fleet pass the 120,000 kilometer mark.

"Frost, Initiate."

Yes sir.

Cole had placed the fleet close to the moon for this very reason. With the Aliens seemingly only focused on his fleet and whatever god damned religious crusade they had, Cole had been able to dry launch fifteen Shiva nuclear missiles from the _Everest_ and the carriers. With the help of the moons gravitational pull, the magnetically launched missiles were slingshotted around the moon and into a vector where Cole had surmised, and partially led the Covenant to.

Fifteen suns, each 400 megatons in power, flashed into existence in the middle of the lead elements of the alien fleet.

Plasma and gamma radiation pulsed outwards as the covenant ships closest to the blast were simply obliterated and Seraphs flashed out of existence like firecrackers.

When the nukes dissipated the damage was revealed. Two Reverence class cruisers were split in half, while two carriers were listing with their aft sections aflame with burnt and destroyed plasma lines, melting whole decks and armor plating. Five Destroyers were either listing or no longer on the scanners. Two Frigates and about six Corvettes were simply debris as the remaining alien fleet had to break their formation to avoid plowing through the remnants and hulks of their fallen brethren.

"All ships. Fire."

_**Reverence Class Supercruiser**_

_**Divine Justice**_

Luro seethed with bloodlust as he watched the leading elements of his fleet all but disappear in fifteen white hot spheres that enveloped them in jets of supercharged Ions and radiation.

He had been wrong, these humans would be a worthy opponent.

"All ships fire a full salvo on my mark, follow through with pulse laser barrage." Luro ordered over FLEETCOM as his reverse jointed legs carried him to the fore of the bridge in only , kicking a unfortunate Unngoy out of the way as the diminutive lesser being squealed as it was flung halfway across the room.

"Plasma Lines to full charge. Burn Them!" he roared as the broken prow of a frigate on the edge of the human attack spewed plasma from its shattered drive, melting armor and decks like tissue paper and sending the ship on a collision course with the bulk of another ruined ship.

"Fleetmaster! Human ships are firing and Electro Magnetic Pulses have knocked out shields on ten ships!" the underling manning the coms all but yelled.

Luro watched in almost mute fascination as the prows of the human ships flared and lines of flame erupted from the sides of the ships as they fired in one massive alpha strike.

"Fleet! Evasive maneuvers!" he roared, knowing that the order would serve little use at this range of a mere 115,000 kilometers.

Eighty Three UNSC ships fired full Alpha Strikes just as the first beams of Lasers and plasma Torpedoes lanced out from the Covenant battlefleet.

Magnetic Accelerator Cannon rounds from lighter 100 ton to heavier 200 ton slugs the sizes of small school busses streaked in lines of comet like flames as they impacted Covenant shields in cataclysmic amounts of power and energy that could have vaporized cities.

Shields on lighter ships shattered as they gave in, allowing another slug to tear the seemingly fragile ship beneath apart.

The _Justice_ shook as the supercruiser's shields took the impact of a direct hit, fading in and out of existence as the ship rolled with the impact and spun off course before the helm regained control.

Railgun slugs struck next while lasers began to try and swat the literal spam of missiles rocketing towards the Covenant ships.

A dozen of Luro's ships had either disappeared off of the TAC screen or were dead in space on terminal courses being wracked by secondary explosions before he ordered the fleet to split into battlegroups, dodging several salvos of railgun fire.

Again he was too late.

"Aft shields are down!" the system's officer shouted as the _Justice_ took several Railgun slugs to its armored hide, denting armor and ripping open several decks explosively.

"Depressurize Seraph Launch Bay Two!" he ordered, momentarily loosing his footing as the crew immediately replied, propelling the ship to the side and out of the line of fire.

"Energize main coil of the Energy Projector!"

"Aye sir!"

Human missiles, their numbers thinned by Covenant Laser Defenses, never the less covered Luro's ships with fire and thunder.

The _Justice's_ reconstituted shields for the most part laughed off the attack, though they were nearly dropped again in the process.

However four more of his ships were not as lucky as their crews joined the thousands of others killed in the afterlife to wait for the Great Journey.

The Human ships defiantly held their line as they went to full reverse and charged their weapons for another Alpha strike.

A third of Luro's fleet had been lost. Crippled or destroyed ships now drifted or spun out of control venting atmosphere and crew, leaving him with just over sixty operational ships left.

His blood screamed for revenge.

"All ships hold Lateral lines at maximum power. Have the remaining Cruisers fire energy projectors. Accelerate to flank speed and launch all remaining fighters, have them attack from all angles and send Phantom Gunboats around the moon along with our four surviving Corvettes and attempt to attack the civilian ships."

"Yes Fleetmaster. Energy Projector is locked in and the fleet's plasma capacitors are all ready to fire." His weapons officer growled.

Excitement flared within Luro as he looked on at the human fleet, noting that their close formation would leave them no room to maneuver and allow them to be burnt apart with his plasma torpedoes.

"All ships fire!"

_**UNSC Everest**_

"Enemy is firing!"

The bridge of the _Everest _turned into a scene that was one of controlled chaos as a wave of plasma torpedoes shot away from the Covenant fleet.

The comms filled with calls for orders from the various captains as Cole watched the plasma rocket towards the fleet with an unwavering stoic face.

"Impact in twenty seconds," Frost monotoned as he rechecked his targeting coordinates.

"Frost have all ships fire a single Shiva Missile here." He said while indicating the area of space on the holo screen before him and 20,000 kilometers in front of the fleet.

"Time detonation and launch to all detonate at the same time and when Plasma passes the zero mark."

"Yes sir. All ships' ordinance is slaved into me and targeted." The AI said as its avatar flashed with code before the fantastically complex algorithms were complete in under a second.

"Launch." Cole nodded.

Eighty three Shiva Nuclear missiles shot away from the back peddling fleet and seemingly straight towards the blue wall of hellfire that was waiting to kill yet more human beings.

The Shivas reached the 20,000 kilometer mark just barely in time to detonate.

The resulting explosions shorted out computers and systems on ships throughout the fleet as the systems struggled to combat the gigantic EMP burst.

"Systems rebooting." Frost announced as the emergency lights in the bridge flickered on and off twice before power was normalized on the _Everest_ and throughout the fleet.

The explosions slowly dissipated to reveal that not one torpedo had made it through.

Cole heaved a sigh of relief as the crew cheered for several seconds before Cole, sitting down in the Captain's chair, bellowed out new orders.

"Status on fleetwide MACs?"

"All ships are reporting around seventy percent charge and climbing."

"All ships are to launch one more Alpha strike and then target and fire at will. Have the fleet loosen the formation to standard spacing."

Frost was about to answer but was cut off by a pencil thin beam moving near the speed of light fired from one of the leading CCS Battlecruisers slicing through the Halcyon Cruiser _Hidalgo_.

The _Hidalgo_ lurched to the side as the beam cut through it like a scythe, ignoring two meters of ablative armor reactor and titanium as if they were non existent.

The cruiser began to roll as its power plant was cut before the beam found the ship's helium three boosted reactor.

The ship exploded and snapped in two with what was left of the remnants of the ship were left tumbling through space in a cloud of debris.

An Energy Projector.

Having faced them before Cole knew that any Covenant ship that mounted one could pick off almost any ship from out of most UNSC weapon's ranges.

Ten more Covenant Cruisers and Battlecruisers fired their bow Energy Projectors, damaging three Destroyers, a Marathon Cruiser, and outright destroying another Marathon Cruiser, another Halcyon, three destroyers and a Frigate which turned into short lived stars that instantly killed most of their crews.

Angrily Preston Cole clenched his fists and shouted over FLEETCOM.

"All ships full Alpha strike! You may fire at will yet hold formation."

Turning off the FLEETCOM Cole glanced at the status of the Civilian Evacuation ships.

They had to hold out for ten more minutes while the Civilians, with two Frigates for escort, performed the Cole Protocol and jumped away.

They would be cutting it close.

_**GA-TL1 Longsword Interceptor**_

_**FS-108 TFIS off of UNSC Prophesy**_

"Break Break Break!" Lieutenant James Gordan yelled into the mike as he yanked the stick back to avoid a throbbing pulse of plasma while the large yet no less agile Longsword complied, zooming up in a tight twenty Gee turn as the assailing Seraph shot under him and began to spin to follow him.

"Someone get this split lip off of me!" he growled into the mike as his co pilot Timothy Allen cursed.

"We have another squadron coming to intercept!"

Gordan and his squadron of Eight Longswords along with another two off of the UNSC _Prophesy_ were engaged in a hellacious dogfight in an attempt to give a trailing Pelican that command had _really_ deemed important a chance at escape.

Teardrop shaped Covenant fighters and wedge shaped Longsword Interceptors danced around each other with a mix of zero Gee maneuvers and sharp turns in a desperate attempt to kill the other before they killed you.

A Longsword from a squadron off of a Frigate whom had also come to their aid exploded as it took a double pulse from a screaming Seraph's twin heavy plasma cannons, melting through its though hull like tissue paper and finding something vital.

"I got your back." One of his wingmates spoke through the mike as he kept his eyes glued to his HUD and the swirling stars and explosions outside, always twisting and juking the venerable fighter that responded flawlessly to his commands.

The Seraph behind him suddenly was consumed in fire as an AGSM-10 missile simply overloaded its shields and shattered the craft.

The Longsword responsible flew past not 40 meters apart, wiggled its wings in the universal sign for thanks among pilots, and turned back into the fight.

"Thanks." Gordan breathed as he too firewalled the throttle, causing the twin fusion engines to push him into his seat with gee forces, and turned back into the battle, looking for targets.

He quickly found one.

Ignoring a burning Longsword that shot across his path, Gordan slipped behind the tail of a Seraph a mere mile away.

The pilot noticed that he was being tailed and sent the alien fighter in a tight bank, which Gordan quickly followed.

After a couple of tight split-s turns Gordan managed to stick on the tail of the teardrop and, sticking the gun sights on his HUD onto the burning tail of the Seraph pulled the trigger on his stick.

The Longsword shuddered as its twin 60 millimeter automatic Railguns sent a stream of projectiles into the Seraph, whose shields flashed into existence as they tried to hold back the destructive power of the slugs.

The shields only lasted for a second of sustained fire as Gordan put another long burst into the Seraph as it tried to break hard to the right while spinning on its axis in a vain attempt to shoot back.

With a push of right rudder pedal Gordan grinned as he merely kept the reticule on the Seraph with disastrous results for the alien pilot.

UNSC Starfighter Training resulted in him being more than adept at Zero Gee maneuvering.

The Seraph crumpled under the fired as it was ripped apart, turning into a blue fireball as one of the large fifties punched through its reactor.

Gordan roared with glee at his now fifth kill, he had made Ace.

However in the back of his mind he knew that among the fleet he was now one of many Ace's. Battle against the Covenant as a fighter Jockey either left you dead or with a large score card to paint on your bird.

He quickly maneuvered the Longsword above and behind another Seraph and with the blaring tone of a lock on let an AGSM fly, turning the alien teardrop fighter into a smear.

"More bogies incoming." Allen said as he looked at another flight Seraphs on his sensor screen.

"Range 300 miles and closing."

Gordan and the other pilots on the team com cursed.

"Where is that damn Pelican?" Gordan breathed as he spun the fighter around to get a lock with his dwindling supply of AGSM-10 missiles.

_**UNSC Pelican**_

_**Dropship Mike-72**_

Kurt _Hated_ space combat.

He felt completely helpless despite all of his training, all of his augmentations and his MJOLNIR Power armor, he could simply be killed by a piece of debris traveling at thousands of kilometers an hour.

Thinking back to how he had gotten himself here he could only shake his head.

He and Blue Team, John, Kelly, Linda and Fred, had been sent to Cappella and attached to Cole's fleet to retrieve a piece of ONI hardware that had been in development in an ONI base in the middle of the Colony's capital city. It had been in development since the Insurrection some twenty years ago, before it was rendered moot anyway. The hardware was a slipspace jamming device that sent out some sort of pulse that gave a ship that was passing by the readings of a black hole, the only thing that could affect a ship in "slip".

How it worked it Kurt had no idea but in essence it forced ships out of Slipspace at a set distance from the point of the device. The goal was originally to install them on a specialized UNSC ship to keep pirates and Rebels from running away from a fight. Now its purpose was to force the Covenant to drop out of slipspace in a star system far away from a colony world equipped with such a device, forcing them to face a defense fleet or defenses head on.

The operation had gone smoothly and Blue team retrieved the device and got it to an awaiting ONI Prowler, which immediately jumped.

From there they assisted the Marines in the evacuation effort by killing HVTs and absolutely causing mayhem.

And when it was all said and done Fred had activated the Havok tactical nuke they had been assigned for the mission.

The Pelican's pilot maneuvered like a mad man as another Seraph tried to make a pass at it, pulse lasers lighting the cockpit as Kurt crouched behind the man and grabbed on to handrails.

"It's a mess out here sir, the Fleet is giving them hell but we have lost twenty ships, though we took more of the alien bastards down with em." The pilot exclaimed as Longsword shot by firing wildly at a Seraph.

Kurt watched as the Covenant fleet, having seemingly abandoned orderly fire and maneuvering, moved in like a pack of wild sharks.

Plasma torpedoes lanced out and Pulse lasers strobbed, melting armor on UNSC ships and killing crewmen.

John Watched as a plasma torpedo hit a Destroyer amidships, setting them ablaze and melting through two meters of titanium A armor honeycombed with carbon nano tubes like paper.

The destroyer jettisoned the affected armor plating into space before the plasma reached the superstructure, flinging it harmlessly into space but leaving a nasty hole in the ship's defense.

Reactive Armor was an old concept from the 20th century but with the Covenant's weaponry the UNSC had revived the concept. Though a relatively new addition to UNSC vessels, the plating was being added to existing ships and built onto new ones as fast as the reactive armor could be built.

Two more UNSC ships were not so lucky as an already wounded Halcyon Cruiser was struck by three plasma torpedoes, burning through its renowned durable honey combed hull and finding something vital. Secondary explosions rippled the length of the 1.17 kilometer warship as it spun out of formation aflame.

A Frigate slewed to the right and began an uncontrolled roll as one of its engine blocks were blown off by a plasma torpedo as a friendly Cruiser raced to cover it.

The UNSC ships fired everything they had in return.

Archer missiles pounded against alien shields or hit unshielded ships with devastating results. Rail gun slugs impacted shields which flared or dropped in return as more ripped digits and decks out of Covenant ships or ripped wounded ones apart.

MAC rounds fired at full power hit ships with such force that they were knocked off course when their shields flared, the shields coalescing in and out of existence on many as they neared the breaking point.

Yet others gave out and were holed.

One Destroyer was holed stem to stern as it spun off course before tearing itself apart with the sheer amount of opposing forces.

A CCS rolled on its side with its engines sputtering as one round from Admiral Cole's flagship _Everest _went through the bottom port side by its hangar bays and out the top, killing hundreds if not a thousand alien crew and severely damaging it as its crew fought to keep the cruiser from becoming a funeral pyre .

The Covenant crew were less than successful as Cole's flagship's second heavy MAC fired. The CCS Battlecruiser, with its engines shattered and shields gone, was helpless as the 200 ton slug gutted the ship.

"They are ripping each other apart. I've haven't seen a battle this even before." Kurt nodded as the pilot agreed.

"We are learning how to beat them, though they always seem to pull more ships out of their asses than we have if we beat them once." The pilot added as the Pelican shook with another near miss.

"We are about three minutes away and….Shit!"

"What?" Kurt asked with concern before he too saw it.

A trio of Covenant Corvettes and two Cruisers were moving directly towards them.

Kurt did not know if it was because they were moving to the planet or were trying to flank the UNSC but either way there was no way they or their escorts would last more than a couple of seconds against that sort of firepower.

The pilot reached for his Com gear.

"Mayday Mayday! This is Mike -72!"

_**UNSC Everest**_

"Seal that hull breach and launch that armor section off, we are still in this!"

Cole ordered as the Battlecruiser shook with more pulse laser hits.

It was not looking good but better than he had hoped.

He was down to fifty three operational ships and nearly all had incurred some form of damage.

The _Everest _herself had taken a plasma torpedo amid ships, destroying a rail gun turret and an Archer Pod and melting through nearly two and a half meters of armor off which still burned red hot from fighting off the tremendous heat, forcing him to eject the fifty meter by fifty meter plate into space.

UNSC and Covenant ships were pounding each other to scrap in what was so far the most even fight the UNSC had seen.

It was a good sign that humanity could fight these alien bastards and was learning, but for him and his fleet it meant that there still wouldn't be much left of his command if they made it out of here.

"The last Civilian Transports are jumping away sir. The rest will be gone in three minutes." The Comms officer announced with obvious relief in her voice.

"_Thank God."_ Cole thought as the display showed five large civilian pleasure liners and freighters loaded down with as many people and what little belongings they could save jumped away in shimmering slipspace portals along with a Frigate escort and the Marine Assault Ship on a random vector.

"All ships begin plotting Slipspace Jumps! Remember to initiate the…Protocol" Cole ordered over FLEETCOM while trying not to add his own name to the Protocol he had enacted.

"Order all of our Longswords to begin returning to their ships. If their ship is destroyed or hangar is damaged go to one of the carriers."

Cole watched as a Covenant carrier the _Everest_ had wounded earlier was finished off by two Destroyers missile volleys and a MAC round coring through it.

That made kill number ten for his flagship for the war so far.

"Sir we are receiving a distress signal from Pelican Mike-72!" Frost announced with worry in its voice.

Before Cole could ask the AI did it for him.

"An Element of the enemy fleet has broken off in an apparent attempt to either intercept them and their escort or they are going to enter a high orbit of Capella and begin orbital Bombardment."

The Alien fleet was now reduced to some forty ships and his was actually larger now, but most of his remaining vessels had incurred moderate damage.

"Sir the Marathon Cruiser _Prophesy _is closest to the Pelican and it and its squadron have incurred minimal losses relative to the fleet." Frost pointed out on the viewer as the ships were highlighted.

One of the ships in that squadron disappeared off of the screen, a destroyer that took a full three plasma torpedoes and was more or less erased.

"Order the _Prophesy _to…"

"Sir." The comms officer interrupted, "_Prophesy _is saying they are going to go retrieve the Pelican and Spartan 51."

Raising an eyebrow Cole spoke over FLEETCOM.

"All ships that have incurred heavy damage jump now. All remaining ships give as much covering fire to the _Prophesy_ and her battlegroup as you can. Use of ALL ordinance is authorized."

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"How much range between us and that Pelican along with our Squadron?" Riley asked as the ship's bridge lighting flickered with yet another pulse laser barrage stitching the cruiser.

"Ten Thousand Kilometers sir." Lieutenant Ashcroft answered as he piloted the ship around a burning Covenant Frigate as the five other ships following the _Prophesy_, the _Thebes_ , two other Destroyers and a Halcyon Cruiser the _Maelstrom _did the same while firing at an approaching Covenant Destroyer with broadsides of Rail gun fire.

"Christ! How many ships are in our way?"

"Two Cruisers, both CCS class and three Corvettes." Answered FitzGibbons.

"Also our course will more or less place us between the Covenant and UNSC fleets minus negative thirty degrees relative to the inclination of the battlespace."

Riley's brain spun, looking for options.

He had only one.

Blast his way through.

It was five versus five, mono e mono.

"Have the _Maelstrom _coordinate fire with us on one Cruiser at a time and have the Destroyers take out those Corvettes."

"Range Closing sir. They are turning to attack."

Riley's heart raced as he stole one more glance at the viewscreen.

One on one more or less with two battlecruisers and three corvettes with superior weapons and defensive shields.

It would be close.

"Fire full Alpha Strike!"

Slugs of steal and tungsten streaked across the heavens followed by hundreds of ghostly contrails of missiles and flashes of Rail Gun slugs.

At a mere 20,000 kilometers they hit nearly instantly, even the Archers of which only a couple dozen were shot down by the Covenant's pulse lasers.

Shields lit as they tried to absorb the massive energy.

The targeted cruiser rolled as its momentum was shifted and its shields collapsed from the full fire of the two UNSC Cruisers three MAC guns.

One of the Corvettes blossomed into a fireball having fell victim to a destroyer's dual MAC guns , missiles and Railguns.

The second was drifting and trailing flaming debris but the third was unscathed, hiding behind its shimmering shield.

The Targeted cruiser was struck by dozens of Archers and a dozen Rail gun slugs that ripped off thick purple armor and left much of the starboard side of the ship a flaming ruin as one of its engines sputtered and air escaped breached decks with bodies tumbling out into the void.

The stricken cruiser rolled over to present its undamaged side as plasma collected on the lateral line of both Cruisers.

Riley and the crew began to shake in wild fear and excitement as they looked down death's door.

"Accelerate into it! All ships activate emergency thrusters and group together just before it hits!" he roared over FLEETCOM as the Plasma discharged.

"FitzGibbons launch our last Shiva and prepare to wipe your memory. Also tell medical to be prepared for heavy casualties." He spoke to the AI.

"_If there is even a ship left."_

"Aye sir. Shiva Launched, tracking around field of fire and cutting booster."

Lieutenant Elroy gripped his crash webbing, "They are firing!"

Plasma, blue spears of death and destruction lanced out from the two Cruisers which each fired their maximum of four torpedoes which in under two seconds covered the now ten thousand kilometer distance that was now in visual range for the mile long ships' crews to see each other.

Not that they wanted to.

Scott Riley's eyes had to close as the dazzling light from the torpedoes and radiation filled the viewscreen and burned for an instant into his retinas.

"Thrusters now!"

He could scarcely think of anything except for his family back home and surviving.

The ship jolted as it was launched on a new course, the plasma tracking them.

Five UNSC ships disappeared into a wall of light and hell fire…

And four came out.

The _Prophesy_'s amid ships were aflame as two torpedoes struck, melting through layer upon layer of armor plating and weapons.

"Launch affected armor now!" Riley ordered as warning lights and klaxons blared.

"Sir we lost the Destroyer _Chamberlain_ and the _Tyrosis _has heavy damage." Lieutenant Awtry announced as FitzGibbons maintained his usual state of calm the AI was granted by his form.

"Plasma is still burning through twenty meters of our hull and is in danger of cutting off the feed to the weapons and MAC." The AI noted as the affected areas were highlighted in red on the viewer.

Riley knew there was only one option to halt the Plasma's advance now that it was _in_ the ship and would feed off of the atmosphere to chew its way deeper into the Marathon Cruiser.

"Depressurize sector and dump atmosphere." He ordered, knowing the order would kill any crewmen still alive in that sector.

"Aye sir."

Atmosphere vented out into space where the oxygen immediately froze into crystals.

"Complete."

The Plasma stopped its advance, then burned out.

"Re-seal deck. Status?"

"MAC number two sustained minor damage to its power grid, its offline but with a few easy repairs will be back up." Elroy sounded off. "Otherwise aside from another Rail Cannon Turret destroyed, two Archer Pods melted and five of our CIWS gone , our Combat Capacity is at sixty seven percent. All Shiva nuclear missiles depleted and our Fury stocks stand at twenty."

"FitzGibbons the Shiva?"

The AI cracked a grin.

"Right in the middle of them. The discharge of their torpedoes blinded their sensors to its launch."

"Detonate."

A small new sun flashed into existence between the Battlecruisers, ballooned , and then enveloped them and the Corvette still in action.

The fireball cooled to yellow and then a dull red.

Even with vacuum enhanced loads, nuclear detonations in space did not last near as long as aerial or ground bursts.

The Cloud thinned to translucency and a glittering haze of cooling metal formed an expanding halo around the ships.

Inside the silver confetti a flickering silhouette formed.

The undamaged CCS Battlecruiser, its shields flashing out in an electrical spark.

"Engage!"

Covenant captian must have said the same thing as all of the ship's large amount of lasers pulsed, stitching the damaged UNSC ships.

The _Prophesy _rolled as her hull and armor took more damage in an effort to minimize that damage that one section or armor plate would take.

The heavily damaged human destroyer _Tyrosis_ was cored as fire ripped the length of the ship before it split open and tumbled out of formation.

Hundreds of Archer missiles and rail gun rounds hammered the alien ship splaying whole blocks open and sliced through weapons ports.

The Ships began to pass over the ship still firing as the wounded battlecruiser, once a smooth and deadly form, was now covered in fire and debris, rolled over to track it aft energy projector.

Just before the UNSC ships passed over the dying Battlecruiser a beam lashed out and hit the Halcyon Cruiser _Maelstrom_.

A dazzeling beam of pure light and radiation lit up the ships and cleaved the dark.

The _Maelstrom's_ damaged titanium armor boiled and vaporized, mixed with venting oxygen and photonic pressure blasted the flames into wavering plumes. The beam ripped through inner decks until the super structure buckled and the remaining inner atmosphere decompressed in a large explosion out of its hangar bay.

The _Maelstrom_ listed and began to spin before something deep inside the ship as its fusion power plant turned against it.

Debris from the cruiser flew by the bridge as Riley could only stare at where the ship used to be.

The guns on the Covenant cruiser fell silent as secondary explosions tore the length of the ship, sending it into a uncontrolled spin.

Riley exhaled.

They had won, but at a tremendous loss.

Only the _Prophesy_ and the destroyer _Thebes_ that seemed to come out of every battle alongside his ship remained.

"Sir we are retrieving our fighters and the Pelican. Loading will take a minute." FitzGibbons announced as Riley looked at the screen that showed the Pilots of each ship decelerating along with the massive bulk of the cruiser. He was surprised at how many survived, there were still nineteen Longswords left out of the original twenty four, though some of them were worse for wear.

The UNSC fleet began to jump out in flashed of light just as a dozen nuclear fireballs consumed yet more Covenant ships.

"_Everest _and fleet is away, we are one of the last ones left."

He turned to FitzGibbons and Lieutenant Ashcroft, "Plot a random slipspace jump."

"Sir!" Lieutenant Elroy almost shouted as he spun at his station.

"We have a Reverence Class Super Cruiser approaching!"

"On screen." Riley responded.

The image of the three thousand meter ship seemed to bear down on him as its deceptively beautiful lines began to gather with destructive energy that seemed to outline the ship in a devilish aura.

"Get us out of here!"

_**Reverence Class Super Cruiser**_

_**Divine Justice**_

Luro could hardly believe what had happened.

He had been defeated.

There were scarcely forty operational ships left in his fleet compared to the fifty three that had been left in the human fleet.

He did not want to think about how this loss of honor from this defeat would be viewed by the High Counsel.

However he also had that nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he had faced a _worthy_ opponent.

He had never seen any one, Sangheilli or other wise fight with such skill.

Luro bowed his head, he had simply been out fought by humans.

He began to feel that nagging feeling that he had heard other Sangheilli whom had faced the humans in battle whisper.

Could these humans be a worthy opponent on par with the Sangheilli?

His mind was at war with itself between the part that was tactful and analytical and the religious part that followed the Great Journey.

They were dangerous thoughts that he shook from his mind as the bridge crew directed the ship towards the last two human ships in system.

Either way there was a battle to fight.

"Lock onto those ships and fire at will." He said as the crew obeyed.

"Time to target ten seconds." Deka replied as his four fingered hands danced across the buttons on his consol.

Then a thought popped into his mind.

There was a way to salvage this defeat.

Luro turned and half ran to the fore of the bridge and raised his hands.

"Belay that! Ready a probe and select its target as…." He looked at the display.

The human cruiser was in relatively good condition and was a more important ship than the smaller destroyer analogue.

"The human cruiser."

"Sir?" Deka and the other command staff looked at him with questioning eyes that were all lit by the dull blues and purples of the bridge's consols.

"Do it, we can potentially find where a major Human world is and maybe their homeworld Earth," Luro's tongue struggled with the mushy alien word.

The probe had been supplied directly from the High Counsel to his flagship for this very use. There had been several previous attempts but they had all proven unsuccessful.

"Yes sir." Deka replied as he and the crew complied, seeing as this could potentially make up for their loss in honor to these humans.

"Probe ready!" a younger minor demos replied from his station near the back of the bridge.

"Excellent."

Luro had to however mask its launch.

The answer was all too obvious.

"Target human destroyer with the fore Energy Projector. Set to Maximum power! Launch the probe!"

"Aye Fleet Master."

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Enemy Cruiser is targeting us!" Lieutenant Ashcroft shouted as the _Prophesy_, having completed its pickup of the Pelican and its fighter group, accelerated.

"Get us out of here! Spin up Slipspace Drive and prepare to jump! Initiate Cole Protocol and choose a random vector and coordinates." He ordered as fast as he could.

FitzGibbons cut in."Sir should I remind you that without the time to formulate a proper jump we could end up far away from UNSC space…"

"Its noted. Do it anyway." The captain cut off the AI whose Avtar shook its head and then nodded.

Lieutenant Awtry spoke up, "Sir we are receiving word from the _Thebes _that their slipspace drive was destroyed in the last attack and they are unable to follow." She said with small tears in her brown eyes.

Riley felt like he was going to be sick.

The words hit him like a punch to the gut.

"They say they are going to drive off the Reverence Cruiser so we can jump." Awtry barely finished as the collective mood of the bridge became suddenly somber.

The destroyer turned on its axis to face the looming bulk of the alien supercruiser.

It had no hope is destroying or even causing significant damage to a ship that powerful, yet it defiantly stood a ship down some fifteen times her size.

"Gods speed." Riley whispered.

As the _Prophesy _began to initiate her jump and the swirling portal slipspace opened before the cruiser, a small probe some five meters long and two meters wide shot towards the ship having been propelled by a magnetic launcher from the _Divine Justice._

The probe was so small and with space now littered with millions of debris radar or any other sensors had no hope of picking it up.

Just as the Fore energy Projector on the Covenant ship flashed the probe latched on the hull of the cruiser just between one of the portside engine cones and the hull, its small size insuring it would never be seen.

The _Thebes_ turned into a short lived sun as the _Prophesy_ entered the swirling mass of slipspace and disappeared.

The probe opened up its flower like array and with a camera began to record the stars and the dazzling extra dimensional swirl of slipspace.

It would do so for days before being shot through slipspace to a receiver ship deep inside the Covenant Empire, having recorded and plotted the space and stars that the ship had been in.

_**Cyrannus Quadruple Star Cluster**_

_**The Unified Colonies of Kobol**_

_**Helios Alpha Star System (Caprica, Gemenon, Picon and Tauron)**_

_**Valkyrie Class Battlestar Perseus**_

_**Two Days after the Battle of Capella**_

The Helios Alpha Star system with its blazing class B star was alive with activity as usual.

The system was home to four of the twelve colonies.

Caprica, the cultural center for the twelve colonies of man as well as its capital planet with its capital city of Caprica City, a sprawling sea side metropolis of seven million.

Gemenon, the first colony to be settled by the fleeting remnants from Kobol two thousand years ago and shared a common gravitational baycenter orbit with Caprica, the two worlds orbiting around each other at over 450,000 kilometers as they orbited Helios Alpha.

Tauron, one of the oldest and wealthiest colonies that had once been a colony for the Virgon empire before the Colonial government was formed. And was now a center for technological innovation alongside Caprica and Virgon.

And finally Picon, the mainly oceanic world where landmasses made up only fifteen percent of its surface. It 1.5 billion residents were also very affluent and Picon was the headquarters of the mighty Colonial Fleet and Marines.

The other planets in the system were the gigantic gas giant Zeus with its large amount of moons and two uninhabitable rocky planets.

Near the large Erebus Asteroid belt that ringed the system's colonized worlds, a 800 meter warship was on a standard patrol.

A Valkyrie class battlestar.

Known as baby battlstars, they were still no less potent than their larger brethren, the Mercury Class Battlestars, Columbia Class Battlestars and the eight remaining 2,000 meter Zeus Class Warstars.

Her thick hull was covered in weapons installations, from pinpoint 30mm radar controlled anti fighter auto cannons, flak guns, a dozen anti ship missile tubes, sixteen 16 inch dual purpose cannons to its main armament of 35 dual railguns.

The _Perseus_ was more than capable of taking on a cylon basestar and its escorts.

The _Perseus_'s escorts hung in space nearby in a typical flanking formation around the Battlestar; a 600 meter Berzerker class Cruiser, two 400 meter long old, venerable and angular Jutunn Class Gunstars and three 100 meter long small Scythe class Escorts for anti fighter duty.

The _Perseus _was part of BSG 39 headed by the Mercury Class Battlestar Triton. BSG-35 was one of three Battlestar Groups that defended Carprica, Picon , Gemenon and Tauron in the system and was one of the fourteen permanent Battlestar Groups in the fleet.

The _Perseus, _as one of four _Valkyries_ Battlestars in BSG-35 along with two retrofitted Columbia's and another Mercury class alongside the Triton; the fifty six ships (including each battlestar's escorts) represented a third of the military armada in system.

Inside the CIC buried deep within the alligator like head of the _Perseus_, Captain David Stradus could not help but sense the relative boredom that came with patrol.

The Cylons had not been heard from in over forty years now.

All signs indicated that they had disappeared and fled far away from the colonies, but any person who had lived through the War like he had knew better than to dismiss them and let their guard down.

Stradus, now 48 years old and sporting a graying and shrinking hairline had only been a boy then, but he could still remember vividly when the house servant Cylon maid killed his mother before his eyes. His father had retrieved the old shotgun they had kept over the mantle in their upscale apartment in downtown Caprica City and blew that glowing red metallic face off.

"Sir all systems are normal. Nothing on our scannars save for two civilian mining ships in the asteroids 200,000 clicks off of our stern." The DRADIS operator, a young woman by the name of Ashley Cadrill , spoke from her station across the bright CIC.

"Good. How are our CAPs doing and our Escorts?" he asked the Communication officer, a Tauron native named Delon Finch.

"All of our squadrons are green and the _Hedom_ is reporting a minor flux in its DRADIS array but other than that we are good.

Stradus nodded and was about to go to his quarters when Lieutenant Cadrill shouted.

"Sir I have a huge radiological reading 60,000 kilometers out in front of us with a positive inclination of 30 degree on the Y-Axis relative to us!"

Stradus spun around to look at the DRADIS screen.

Sure enough a gigantic, unknown reading was where the woman had said it was.

What could it be?

"A nuclear detonation?" he asked.

"No idea. Panning the external telescopes now and showing on screen."

One of the larger screens resolved to show a blue…hole in space with swirling and dazzling colors inside.

"What in the Gods' names is that?"

The crew was a loss for words as Finch confirmed that all the other ships and Vipers were seeing the same thing.

"I have no…" the young woman paused then exclaimed and pointed to the screen.

"Look!"

From the middle of the sphere came a ship.

"Zoom in and enhance!" Stradus ordered without a seconds hesitation.

The ship that appeared on screen was like nothing he had seen before.

It was the size of a Mercury Battlestar. It had angular lines and a dull grey appearance.

It was also clearly a warship.

Though at this extreme range where it would take ten minutes to reach engagement range (an intersystem jump was possible but they were always horribly inaccurate and would scatter the formation) and as a result the resolution was a little bit blurry.

He could still make out dozens of large turrets, missile pods (much more than on Colonial ships he noted) and he could barely pick out what looked like point defense guns.

There were no decernable flight pods but there were several hangar bays amidships and on the top of the ship.

From what he could tell it was a pure battleship.

"Look at that battle damage." Exclaimed one officer.

The ship sported dozens of black pock marks all over its surface and obvious armor plating. Though more apartment were two large gashes each almost 80 meters in length.

"My Gods it looks…melted" Ashley pointed.

Stradus had never seen any sort of damage like it.

"What kind of a weapon could do that?" he asked aloud.

"Profile matches NO known designs, Colonial or Cylon." Chidrill reported.

Stradus took one more look at the screen.

"Finch try any and all frequencies to get in contact. Raise the _Triton_ and Fleet Command."

The man nodded as he got to work.

"Battlestations! Accelerate to attack speed and close the gap to attack range." He ordered as the helm responded and the klaxons on all of the ships wailed.

The engines on the _Perseus_ and her escorts blared as they accelerated forward.

Vipers launched from their tubes and accelerated ahead of the fleet.

Weapons activated

**PLEASE REVIEW!**


	2. Chapter 2

**I am super sorry for the delays people, but I am now currently working in the office of a Texas Congressman in D.C. If you have been watching the news lately (if you don't then you should learn to now), you can guess that I have been busy.**

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

Kurt made his way from the hangar bay towards the bridge through the labyrinth of corridors and bulkheads that made up the massive cruiser.

He had to take diversions around areas that were either sealed off or had been damaged in battle, particularly during the _Prophesy's_ drive through two Covenant cruisers to rescue him and the Marines with him.

Whole sections of the ship had been heavily damaged and Kurt had to move himself out of the way as some damage control teams along with robotic assistants ran past to make the repairs that they could.

Though the Cruiser had been battered its survival had been a testament to its design. Marathon Cruisers were one of the few ships in the UNSC Fleet that were able to go toe to toe with Covenant ships up to CCS battlecruisers and have a hope of winning in an even fight. Aside from the new and even larger _Everest _class Battlecruisers which were rolling out of the shipyards at half a dozen a year now they were the most powerful ships ever crafted by human hands.

Even more telling was that most of the damage when viewed from the outside was actually merely superficial and cosmetic.

Kurt was well aware of the stares that he was receiving from passing crewmen and women as he stepped in one of the turbo lifts to take him to the bridge some twenty decks above.

The sight of an 8ft tall soldier clad in the most advanced and powerful power armor suit ever devised, so powerful in fact that only augmented supersoldiers like the Spartans could use them without killing themselves, and covered in dried alien blood and enough weaponry to fight his own battle, made for one interesting sight as Kurt himself knew.

Even after all his years of training the now eighteen year old still had not quite gotten used to how different he really was.

But thankfully unlike most of the other Spartans like John or Linda, he did not have much problems conversing with non Spartan personnel or even the Civilians he and Blue Team had rescued so far.

The gravity on the elevator faded in and out of existence as it passed through decks and their subsequent Artificial Gravity plating before it came to a stop and opened up to the bridge.

Two ODSTs who stood guard outside the command center actually flinched before realizing he was a fellow UNSC service member.

Kurt decided to salute the Shocktroopers whom were fully decked out in their distinctive black ODST Battle Armor Assault Suits and wielding GR-2 Gauss Rifles.

The ODSTs curtly saluted back as he entered the bridge.

The bridge of any warship was always alive with activity, but this time it was on the verge of information overload.

Aids and officers raced to and fro from their perspective stations, giving out status reports as Captain Riley directed the chaos with unusual calm from his position at the fore of the bridge leaning over the main holo table.

"We have sealed off most of the hull breaches and normalized power throughout the ship." The ship's Artificial Intelligence that held the avatar of an 18th century European naval officer complete with a hook for a right hand, spoke.

The captain nodded, "Good, keep us in Slipspace for five days to make sure we loose them. When we drop out we will perform two more small random jumps up spiral and double back to UNSC controlled space and then to Reach."

He paused as he looked over some more readouts on his data pad before continuing.

"We should arrive at Reach in about two weeks at this pace, slow but with a random vector like you said god knows where we end up."

The AI nodded.

"Your calculations are correct sir, at 20 light years a day we should loose the Covenant pursuers , however we are going into uncharted space towards the galactic core and we could possibly end up in the middle of Covenant space."

It was then that the Captain noticed Kurt walking towards him and the stares that he was receiving.

The man's jaw visibly dropped.

Kurt grinned.

_Here we go again._

"Spartan 51 Reporting in Sir." Kurt curtly replied as he snapped off a perfect salute, which the man returned with a pause.

"Captain Scott Riley, welcome to the Prophesy, erm..Fifty One." He replied as he motioned to the AI at its pedestal, "And this is FitzGibbons"

Kurt knew that if he was to avoid the usual awkwardness that came with being among non Spartan personnel he had to at least show he was a person, as he knew that some Marines and Naval members thought that Spartans were actually robots. However Spartan's like Kelly with her specialized MJOLNIR armor that was more revealing of the woman beneath due to its slimmer and form fitting style to allow for her generally insane speeds generally dispelled that myth.

"You can call me Kurt sir." He replied as he reached up and undid the seal on his helmet.

He revealed something that many Spartans, notably John and Linda, generally liked to keep secret, his face.

However for Kurt he never really faced the problem, as with what little he could remember of his past life he had always been a social type.

The MJOLNIR helmet dropped to reveal his deep hazel eyes and his as usual short brown hair.

It also showed his paling face, though unlike the others he spent more time out of his armor than did other Spartans so his pigment was not lost like some extreme cases as with Linda.

The Riley and the crew visibly relaxed somewhat as the A.I. pulled up some information.

"The Orion Program, ONI decided to declassify some limited information about mister Kurt here when it was apparent he would be coming on board."

"And?" The Captain asked.

"Essentially physically and cybernetically augmented , HIGHLY trained supersoldiers equipped with the most advanced power armored system available. That is all that I am privy to." The AI answered.

The captain's eyebrows raised.

"Well I guess that explains Sergeant Ludmilla's after action report." He sighed.

"Sir are there any tasks that I can help with during my stay?" he asked, not wanting to sit idle as he feared he would, and not wanting to go into any more Cryo Sleep than he had to.

"Unfortunately not much." Captain Riley replied.

"But we have a quarters assigned for you, so at least you have a place to wait this out."

_**Three Days Later….**_

Kurt felt about as out of place as a Spartan in the middle of a mess hall that one could feel.

Wearing a pair of standard grey UNSCDF Navy Servicemen Fatigues (though they had to be altered to beyond their form adjusting fibers simple programming to fit the Spartan's enhanced and superhuman frame), he walked out of the automated food service line and into a sea of stares.

The mess hall on the cruiser was generally like all UNSC ships that carried Marines split between both the Marines and the more numerous Navy personnel. However there were even more divisions here.

The _Prophesy's_ fighter group all set together at a table near the entrance, though they had also picked up some straggling Longswords from the fleet to replace their losses.

Next were the _Prophesy's_ Marine contingent, and they were further separated between the dozen or so ODSTs, the Marine pilots and tankers, and the groundpounders.

The officers among the naval personnel generally sat together though there were exceptions today.

Kurt eyed his food while again noting the stares of the Marines, several of which he noticed were on the Pelican that he had helped fight off the Covenant Special Operations Elites.

Though to Kurt it meant very little he also noted some of the stares that the female servicemen gave him.

Sitting down at one of the empty tables Kurt began to eat his meal.

Perhaps one of the other reasons that he had received stares was the amount of food on his tray.

He had accumulated two hamburgers (of which were his favorite) a sandwich, two servings of potatoes and another full bowl of rice complete with two glasses of water.

If there was one curse as a Spartan it was that when a Spartan got hungry he or she was _very_ hungry. He had to eat far more calories in a meal than the average person did, though he could go without several meals if need be with no consequence.

As he ate his meal the Marines at the table closest to him began to try and take glances at him without his knowing, unaware of just how much Kurt was able to take in and process of his surroundings.

Kurt could accurately guess the weight of each and every man and woman at that table if he wanted to.

After finishing his second hamburger the whispering, which he also heard, was getting so obvious Kurt decided to simply have a little fun that was unique to him.

He listened in.

"_What the hell kind of a Marine do you think he is? The ODST's never heard of anything like him."_

"_I heard from one of the officers on the bridge that he is one of ONI's secret soldiers. Some sort of supersoldier that was part of a team that caused hell behind Covenant Lines on Capella. Ive heard stories about soldiers like that in some wicked armor on Harvest."_

"_I've heard that they are some sort of re-animated Marines from the past that…"_

The others cut the younger Marine off.

"_Williamson that is the most retarded thing I have EVER heard."_ Said one of the older Marines whose shoulder patch read as a Corporal Strauss.

The man he had saved.

Kurt shook his head with a chuckle.

Now that was something new.

"_Your shitting me. I swore he was a cyborg until he ate a tray full of food. I wonder if he knows what we are talking about. You guys could not be more obvious."_

Kurt grinned as he picked up his tray to take it to the dispenser and walked by the table.

His height made him tower over just about everyone in the mess hall as he again attracted attention.

"_I might as well danced around here naked for all it matters_"

Kurt made his way by the table as the younger of the Marines tried to not look obvious and the older ones simply face palmed knowing how obvious it must have looked.

Kurt paused in front of their table.

"I must say, Ive heard them all but a re-animated soldier is certainly new." He said with a grin.

The younger Marine with a buzzed head and blue eyes who looked like he was just out of boot looked shocked.

"You..you could hear me?"

"Oh good lord yes he can junior." The sergeant named Ludmilla answered for him as the others chuckled.

"So what exactly are you and can you even tell us?" Strauss asked as the corporal scratched his cropped black hair.

"Im a SPARTAN II under NAVSPECWAR, my name is Kurt and….well that's about it." He replied with a small grin.

"So….some sort of supersoldier?"

"You could say that."

The sergeant moved over and patted the spot next to her.

"Well take a seat Mr. NAVSPECWAR, it's the least we can do after you saved half of this table's ass."

Kurt looked at the spot.

It was the first time he would eat with a non Spartan since his training years ago.

"Alright, thanks." He replied as he sat himself and his tray down.

He sat a full head taller than the others at the table and Strauss had to comment.

"What the hell do they feed you?"

The Spartan decided to play along.

"Well they do water me twice a day and give me plenty of sunshine."

The table snorted as the lights in the mess hall dimmed.

Everyone present shot up.

Over the intercom Captain Riley's voice called out with concern.

"Something is wrong." Kurt said as the others nodded.

"_Exiting Slipspace."_

"What we were not supposed to exit in another day…"

Williamson was cut off with the ship jolting and shuddering as it reverted back into realspace.

"Something wrong with the drive?"

"Oh god I hope not."

Then what Kurt had been fearing happened.

The klaxons came on and began wailing as emergency lights flashed on.

"_Battlestations! This is not a drill. Slipspace engine failure. Seven unknown ships approaching."_

"Shit!"

Kurt was already halfway to the cryobay where his suit was being prepped for battle.

_**Bridge **_

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"What the hell happened to the Shaw Fujukawa Drive?" Riley exasperated as the 1,190 meter long two and a half million ton UNSC Marathon Class Cruiser exited the shimmering tunnel of slipspace a day early.

Alarms were blaring all over the bridge as officers, most of them eating what would be lunch ran back into the bridge to their awaiting consoles, most of them with flashing holo screens indicating something was wrong somewhere.

"The Slipspace field began to collapse due to stress the drive mountings must have incurred during our battle. The field began to become unstable and the emergency protocols shut down the drive and exited us from Slipspace." FitzGibbons answered as his code flashed multiple colors at once.

"Great another thing we need to fix. Any estimate on how long it could take?"

Lieutenant Ashcroft was the one to answer that for him.

"Sir the preliminary damage control teams estimate up to a day. There were multiple micro factures in the drive mountings in engineering that escaped our sensors and grew larger the longer we were in slipspace."

Captain Riley gave an irritated snort as he sat in his seat, fidgeting with his collar, a nervous habit he had long ago developed.

"Elroy what do we have on our sensors? Any clue where we are?"

"Sensors are coming online now….." the man paused as he read the information on the screen before him that the vast array of phased radar, spectro scopes and infa red array gave him.

"Holy shit! We are in what appears to be a heavily populated system!"

No sooner than the words left his mouth than the bridge exploded with activity.

"Put the readouts on screen now!" Riley all but shouted.

They were in a heavily populated system alright, the readouts showed up to four possible planets with populations that were capable of supporting life.

And it was quite a unique system.

Two of the worlds were both orbiting around each other like satellites around a common baycenter while orbiting the system's primary class B star. Another two planets orbited the star in near perfect orbits, one closer to the star that was covered with oceans and the other a rocky mountainous world nearby to the asteroid belt that they had appeared close to. A gas giant larger than the monstrous Jupiter was behind them with 74 moons that filled the rear view screen.

"Is it just me or are all of those worlds in the habitable zone of the star?" Riley asked.

"Your observations are correct. " answered FitzGibbons , "I am detecting a large amount of intersystem traffic and communications….and seven unknown warship type vessels at 40,000 kilometers and closing."

Riley's heart skipped a beat as the radar and sensors showed the seven outlines of warships a scant 40,000 clicks distant launching dozens of what appeared to be oversized missiles on radar.

Riley shot up from his seat.

"Battlestations! Helm turn us into them. Bring all weapons to full power. FitzGibbons coordinate CIWS and anti Missile Pulse Lasers!"

"_We just get out of one fight and into another."_

The klaxons wailed as the bridge lighting turned to red, Ashcroft turned the cruiser into the on coming threat as the bloodied ship responded, albeit sluggishly.

"Captain, profiles match no known Covenant, UNSC or Insurectionalists class vessels." FitzGibbons commented as the viewscreen showed the seven vessels.

To say their designs were new would have been an understatement.

For the most part they were far more exotic in appearance than typical UNSC ships, as they had mostly curves and a wider appearance than human ships.

The lead ship was 800 meters long and had a long "fuselage" that had an alligator like bow section. Most noticeable it had two pods suspended on either side that looked like large hangar decks.

The main hull of the ship was covered in weapons emplacements and obscured missile pods that were nearly hidden among the numerous armor plating that covered the entire ship.

It was most likely a carrier type vessel or command ship, though it did seem to mount a heavy anti ship armament.

The smaller escorts flanking the carrier shared most of the same characteristics, albeit smaller in scale or clearly built for anti fighter duties or anti ship escort.

"Well those designs certainly look new." Riley thought aloud as the bridge crew turned to look from their stations.

"Sir we have positive lock ons with our Archer Pods A through D and F through H. Missile stocks at Fifty percent." Lieutenant Elroy announced at WeapCOM.

"MAC number one is chambered and Charging at sixty percent. Number two is standing at twenty and rising towards Thirty. All railguns are targeting and loading now."

On the display the images of the unknown fleet turning to meet them dominated.

Their engines flashed as they adjusted their courses to face the _Prophesy_ and began to accelerate towards them.

"Smaller contacts identified as fighter class vessels, though size is on the …small side." The AI monotone as the screen enhanced to show what looked like dart like gun metal single ships.

There was a small discernable cockpit area and near the rear of the small fighter and three large engine pods directly behind that. He could only pick out three cannons of unknown design but they appeared to be projectile based like most of their weapons did, at least from their perspective.

"Damn those things are small, you could probably fit most of one in a Longsword's weapon's bay." Riley thought aloud as he nodded to the Fighter Ops station.

"Launch our fighters."

"Aye sir." Lieutenant Ashcroft and the other officers replied as the Longswords shot our of their bays propelled by magnetic catapults before throwing their ships drives into impressive burns.

"Our Shaw Fujukawa Slipspace Drive is inoperable, no estimates on repairs. However judging by their speed I say we can simply outrun them, however at this range and our need to accelerate they will still get some shots off at us, though with what or what range we can only guess." He continued.

The _Prophesy _was now facing the oncoming task force as it's remaining seventeen Longsword Interceptors launched, accelerating away from the ship as another four of the wedge shaped fighters whom had been recovered from the ill fated _Maelstrom's_ fighter wing and attached to the _Prophesy_ .

"Range is down to 38,000 kilometers. All weapons are locked in. Orders sir?" Lieutenant Elroy asked as he turned to Riley with a questioning look on his face.

Riley had already made up his mind.

They had no information on these aliens and humanity was already at war with a genocidal alien alliance hellbent on killing every last human in the galaxy.

Plus why would he want to start yet another war?

Before the Covenant had rendered the Insurrection and brief Civil War moot the UNSC had been fighting Anti Government Insurgents and terrorists since 2460.

The Insurrection as it was called had ironically led the UNSC to dramatically not only increase the size of its military and enact many Political reforms but had eventually prepared Humanity for the Covenant.

However by 2498 seven star systems and ten worlds, two of them more populous Inner Colonies, had openly seceded from the UNSC and began to rally remaining Insurectionalist forces to their cause.

Calling themselves the URF, or the United Rebel Front, they launched a brief war when disarmament talks failed and the small but determined URF Navy launched an all out attack on the heart of the UNSC and the UEG, Earth.

The abortive surprise attack was repulsed by the UNSC Home Fleet but not before thirty UNSC ships, a then unheard of amount of casualties in a single battle, were lost and an attempted Orbital Bombardment of the UN headquarters in New York City was avoided by Missile Defense Systems.

The brief one year war that followed , known as the Rebellion War in the Inner Colonies and Core Worlds or as the One Year War by Outer Colonists, left one and a half million dead, dozens upon dozens of UNSC ships lost and had scattered the Rebels who survived the brutal UNSC's response with its much more massive military had since reverted to deadly raids and pirate attacks but also set off two more wars which came to be known as the Operation Trebuchet , a war where many of the current admiralty had grown out of, notably Admiral Cole and Admiral Terrance Hood.

But more importantly it caused the UNSC to gain much needed experience in fighting Interstellar war which it had not done since the small scale Inner Colony "wars" that took place soon after Colonization and led the UNSC to dramatically upgrade its military capabilities throughout its forces.

Also a direct result of the Battle of Earth had been a huge investing into Orbital Defense Grids, out of which the Super MAC Guns had been born and their Orbital Defense Platforms which ringed planets that could afford them usually Inner Colonies.

The ODP Grid over Reach was planned to be built up to some thirty ODPs and Earth's a staggering One hundred. Now however as soon as the Covenant had appeared and with the looming Alien threat Earth's had been increased to a titanic Three hundred on top of tripling the size of the Home Fleet, no less the defenses being built on Mars and the Jovian Moons.

Reach's Grid now stood at Twenty and plans were to double it and increase the Epsilon Erindani Fleet to a whopping two hundred at any given time, though it was miniscule in relation to Earth's fleet. Earth's Grid was a long way off from completion but the Sixty in orbit was the most powerful defense system ever created by mankind.

However yet another result of the past wars and the current hell Humanity was in meant one thing to Captain Riley.

The last thing he wanted to see was another fight.

If first contact could go Humanities way for once the opportunities were tremendous.

"Slow us down and tell the fighters to merely form a defensive perimeter around us about 300 miles out." The captain ordered as Lieutenant Ashcroft acknowledged and slowed the Cruiser's acceleration.

"FitzGibbons, Lieutenant Awtry." Riley spoke as he paced back between the Comms station and the Holo table with the AI's avatar.

"Yes sir?" the young woman and communication's officer asked as she pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her way.

"Send the first contact message, Laser Communications, Subspace and Radio." He ordered.

"Yes sir!" the woman excitedly replied as she got to work at her station.

"Sir you may not have to do that." FitzGibbons called out from her station.

Turning around with a quizzical look Scott Riley walked back to the Avatar's pedestal.

"How so FitzGibbons?"

"Well they are trying to raise us on a rather antiquated form of radio waves, but moreover I ran the language through the translator and I actually came up with a result."

That was an attention getter.

Miss Awtry nodded, "I am getting the same thing."

"What language?"

"Ancient Greek."

The bridge was silent as Riley and the crew mulled it over.

"….How can that be?" Rley asked as the AI for once did not have an answer.

Riley paused.

"Can you translate it?"

"Of course, Here you go."

Out of the bridge comm system a tingy voice of an older sounding man resounded throughout the bridge.

"…_Unknown ship this is the Colonial Battlestar Perseus please respond. You have entered Colonial space. Acknowledge…."_

"Colonial Space? Not likely actual UNSC Colonial space. So what could that be?" Riley thought aloud as the crew pondered the same thing.

"FitzGibbons ready me a reply and find me some translators and program them, looks like we may need them."

_**Colonial Valkyrie Class Battlestar Perseus**_

"Any progress? Stradus asked Delon Finch, the Comms officer as he paced around the CIC watching the TV screens as the unknown ship seemed to slow itself down.

The fleet had braced for the worst when the unknown ship launched twenty one large wedge shaped fighters.

He and the Pilots in the Vipers had been blown away by the size of them, they were the size of freighters!

However that mood changed when they got a glimpse of their speed when the fighters had boosted away from the unknown ship at damn near stupendous speeds and in the few maneuvers they had performed shown that they were frighteningly agile given their size.

They were now holding at a rather large distance from the ship, some three hundred miles out, three times that of his Vipers and Raptors.

However the ship itself had also come to a near halt some thirty five thousand kilometers from him.

It raised some questions.

Maybe his communications had been received and they had decided that they had no hostile intentions?

Or could they by some way actually target and hit his ships from this range?

If so then with what?

His ships and standard Colonial or even Cylon ships had engagement ranges that usually never exceeded fifteen thousand miles.

Cylon missiles and Colonial ones as well, though they had no doubt improved since the War, were too easy to intercept from that range by Picket Vipers or Cylon Raiders.

Colonial Railguns which humanity favored usually could be dodged past ten thousand kilometers, provided a ship detected their firing and was not too slow to evade.

"I have no way of knowing sir. For all we know they don't even use Radio to communicate. I know how corny this sounds but we may be seeing our first non human or Cylon vessel." The man replied as his gaze never left his screen and his headset remained glued to his ears.

Stradus had to catch himself from scoffing, the idea of aliens had become farfetched to humanity and was relegated to mostly science fiction these days.

However many astronomers also noted that there were too many stars that could have life supporting planets, so it was really more than possible. But those same scientists generally were pessimistic in regards to anything more advanced than fauna existing.

And he was not going to even mention the topic in relation to the Sacred Scrolls.

"As far fetched as we all agree it is you are right, continue with our transmission. Any word from the Fleet or Picon?"

Lieutenant Cadrill answered that one as she enthusiastically spun around to face him from across the CIC as she held up the recently printed out report.

"Picon is receiving and they are sending up the _Pegasus _and her escorts along with…" she paused as she showed a surprised look, "..erm with the _Galactica_."

Both ships raised Stradus's eyebrows.

Admiral Cain was well known for being as standoffish as she was a good commander. She was in his opinion as well as many others a good Admiral to be leading you in battle and during war but not during peacetime.

Especially in this potential Situation.

And the _Galactica?_

The original Colombia Class battlestar had received few if any of the fleet upgrades with William Adama in command.

The ship was not even networked and was scheduled for decommissioning in three months and was to be turned into a museum.

However he knew well that Adama was unlike many commanders in the Fleet actually fought as a distinguished Viper pilot during the War, and had gone on to Command the lead ship of the Valkyre class Battlestars and namesake.

As a result the man was a valuable resource to have during battle as well as of now, though the man was going to finally retire when the Old Girl left the fleet.

"The Admiralty is scrambling all available ships in system and have alerted Adar and the Quarem to the developments." Cadrill continued.

"Nagala and Adar have both stated that we are to attempt to make peaceful contact while a proper response is formulated. All Civilian traffic has been told to divert around us but word got out the minute it happened. The Civies and press are going to have to be delt with until they can be allowed near us, though the fleet can handle it for now."

Stradus nodded.

"Have all Vipers hold formation at standard spacing from notable inbound vectors off possible attacks and also order all pilots to be prepared to escort any civilian ships away if necessary. If…"

"Sir!" the shout from Finch's voice startled many and caused the captain to spin around in fear that the worst may have come to pass.

"What is it!" he asked, half yelled as he ran to the man's station as the rest of the crew looked on with worry and anticipation from their stations.

"I got something! I have a hail from the unknown ship, in Caprican! But it does sound like it is being run through some sort of translation system." The man stated exasperatedly.

His heart pounded in his chest as David let loose a sigh of relief.

He was fearing a lock on tone or to see one of his ships disappear off of DRADIS.

"Put it on."

The man nodded as the synthesized sounding voice of a man came through the CIC's speakers which fizzled with static before clearing.

Everyone stopped doing their tasks as they listened in.

"…_This is the United Nations Space Command Cruiser UNSC Prophesy to the ship calling itself the Battlestar Perseus of the Colonials. I am captain Scott Riley. We mean no harm to you and your peoples, our ship was damaged in a previous battle and our Slipspace drive gave out, dropping us into your system by mistake. Can you understand me?"_

Aside from the repeating message the fleet and the CIC was dead silent.

It sounded so….human.

Who was this United Nations Space Command ?

What was this battle that they had fought in and had so obviously been damaged in?

Who had they been fighting?

What the hell was Slipspace?

That thing was a cruiser to them?

Stradus turned to Delon, placing his hand on the officer's shoulder to remind him that he was still there.

The man was so enamored that he nearly jumped.

"Yes sir?"

"Send a reply. Tell them that we can understand them and we also mean no harm."

He paused, trying to remember those distant and long disregarded First Contact Protocols he had studied many years ago.

"Tell them that we should speak face to face and that they are welcomed to come aboard."

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"_We can hear you UNSC ship Prophesy. We too come in peace, though your sudden appear caused some concern. We would like to meet with you on board our ship. Would this suffice? Our civilian leadership will send proper envoys later."_

Riley looked to Lieutenant Awtry and then Elroy, Ashcroft, and finally FitzGibbons.

"Sir they do seem friendly enough, a hell of a lot nicer than our last first contact. This could be huge opportunity." Awtry noted as the Bridge doors opened to reveal the hulking form of the supersoldier..no Spartan, in his full armor with his MA6 attatched to his back magnetic strip.

The crew again stared, Riley too as the towering and downright intimidating sight of soldier named Kurt came to his side and saluted.

"Sir what is the SITREP?" the man asked as the external speakers on the 7ft tall armored suit synthesized his voice.

"It looks like we may be making a trip to meet some aliens who don't want to kill us on sight for once." Riley answered.

_**TO BE CONTINUED.**_

_**PLEASE REVIEW!**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**IMPORTANT NOTE PLEASE READ**_

_**THE LONGSWORDS I DEPICT ARE THE SMALLER (MORE REALISTICALLY SIZED, BUT STILL BIG) LONGSWORDS SEEN IN HALO REACH THAT ARE ABOUT (ITS BEEN CALCULATED PEOPLE LOOK IT UP ON HALOPEDIA AT THE BOTTON OF THE ARTICLE) 40 METER LONG AND ARE ALSO A LITTLE BIT SLEEKER.**_

_**ALSO WHILE I LOVE THE LONGSWORD, THE ONLY THING I DON'T LIKE IS THAT DUMB "HUMP" ON ITS TAIL, SO IMAGINE THE TAIL SECTION IN THESE PIECE AS LACKING THAT HUMP.**_

_**THAT IS ALL (SORRY FOR THE CAPS OVERKILL)**_

_**PLEASE REVIEW! I LOVE REVIEWS REALLY, THAT IS THE WHOLE REASON I WRITE HONESTLY, AND THE MORE I RECEIVE IT ENCOURAGES ME TO WORK FASTER.**_

_**PLUS I WANT TO KNOW YOUR HONEST OPINIONS ABOUT THE STORY OR CHAPTER, I REALLY LIKE LONGER REVIEWS.**_

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Are you sure these things work?" Riley asked, fumbling the small earbud like device as he and Lieutenant Awtry walked through the main hangar bay of the Cruiser as crew and deck robots ran or drove carrying weapons, fuel and equipment to awaiting ships.

Situated as deep into the ship as its designers could place it the Hangar bay was a constant swirl of activity as its complement of twenty five Pelicans sat in their docking bays ready to be either raised through a set of two large quick locking airlocks or to be flung out of one of the Cruisers fast launch bays out of the port and starboard side, though it was usually used only by the fighters. A pair of M808D Scorpion Light Tanks used only by Marine Units "afloat" on cruisers slowly rumbled to one of the four vehicle lifts to take them to the cruiser's smaller vehicle bay to join the Cruiser's Eighteen other light tanks and , Cougars and Warthogs which were used more for infantry and street clearing duty as their only advantage over the far more powerful, advanced and newer M1000 Grizzly's now favored by the Marines and Army was their light weight that afforded them ease in transport by Pelican.

The motor pool and even Marine contingent on board a Marathon Cruiser were far smaller than on the older Halcyons as they were meant as pure ship killers, and as such all space was essentially weapons, armor, powerplant and engines with most leftover space not meant for the crew given to house the cruiser's Longsword squadrons.

It was a switch in focus that could not have come at a better time for the UNSC.

"I've programmed them myself sir, it will uplink with our Neural Implants and simply translate everything they say and we will hear it in English. And the microphone will do vice versa when we talk and transmit in Greek." Lieutenant Awtry explained as she reached over and took the translator from the captains' hands and turned it on.

Riley snorted in amusement.

"We didn't have these when I left the Academy way back in '07."

Awtry smiled as she handed it back to him, "So what is the plan? Standard First Contact protocols?"

Stepping over an exposed coolant line leading to one of the parked Longswords that was being fitted an belly mounted underslung 300 kilowatt laser laser cannon for missile interception duties (though the pilots had already noted they would be useful against these small alien fighters should they be unfriendly) Riley nodded.

"Standard procedure. They apparently do not have that much of a first contact protocol so FitzGibbons had to talk them through it. He asked for a sample of their atmosphere to be taken and the results sent over."

"And?"

Riley sighed as the Pelican they were to use came into view after rounding a corner.

"According to FitzGibbons their Computer's, if their method of deliveries and code were anything to go by, are akin to something from the 2030's to 2060's. However their atmosphere is nearly identical to something we would find on Earth or one of the Colonies."

"So we are looking at Humanoids? However the Elites and Kig Yar also apparently come from Worlds similar to Earth given their ability to breath our atmospheres with little difficulty." The woman replied.

"True, but I cant get past how …human like they sounded. You take all of your inoculations and standard Nanite injections in case they carry something nasty?"

"Yes."

The Pelican's crew stood at attention along with their assembled escort, Two ODSTs in full combat gear and small rocket packs the size of standard jet packs but with more maneuvering thrusters attached to the back of their armor and on top of the fusion batteries that powered the nano fibers that were present in all Marine and ODST armor.

There were also another four Marines from the 312th MEU present all loaded down with standard weapons , gear and their armored suits.

At the sight of the captain they all stopped their casual banter and saluted, which Riley casually returned before signaling them to remain at ease.

They were coming along not only as escort for incase something went wrong but to also make a statement about the UNSC.

A fully armed Marine Fireteam and a pair of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers would definitely make a statement.

"Marines, as you are all aware we have just made contact with yet another sentient spacefaring alien race. And so far it appears that we may actually not be trying to kill each other for once." The captain addressed as the Marines nodded in agreement.

"However I want you to be fully prepared to fight our way out of this if this goes sour." He added.

"You don't have to encourage us to kill aliens." One of the ODSTs whose Emblem read Captain Jason Garret said with the air of confidence.

The Captain had been stationed on the _Prophesy _ for the better part of a year and was more than adept at commanding the cruiser's thirty two ODST's in battle as he had on Harvest and throughout Admiral Cole's campaign.

"However.." Riley added as he looked at each Marine present, staring each Marine in the eyes as the normally see through visor's on the Marine M-51 Armor allowed the expressions of each man or woman to be seen.

The ODST's de-polarized their faceplates.

"Do everything you can to not start a fight or lead to a misunderstanding. You are to simply act as an escort, nothing more."

"Yes sir!"

"Mount up." He motioned as the men and woman obliged as they climbed into their seat, Riley taking the copilot's seat behind the pilot.

"_Firebird Three you are cleared for launch."_ The synthesized voice of the dumb AI that managed the launching and loading of Interceptors and dropships announced.

The Pelican lifted off and flew into one of the large airlocks above the hangar bay which immediately closed as the dropship flew through yet another set of airlocks before nearing the outside of the ship.

As the last airlock closed the Pelican flew the short fifty meters straight and out of the top launching deck into the open vacuum.

Stars replaced the dull gunmetal of titanium A and the huge bulk of the Marathon Cruiser began to shrink away behind them.

In the distance a tiny white baseball of the system's gigantic gas giant hung in the sky two million miles away as Riley caught himself looking for the alien fleet, though he knew at this range that was quite impossible.

For all his years in the navy and even the past five in command of a cruiser (a post most officers dreamed of), he still found himself at awe with the vast distances associated with the cold emotionless virtues of space combat and space flight in general.

"This is Wizard Flight, we will escort you in. Alien fighters are meeting us halfway it seems." The voice of one of the two escorting Longswords' pilots came over the comms.

"Roger Wizard flight," Riley acknowledged as the black angular forms of two forty meter long black interceptors came in alongside them, briefly blotting out some of the stars.

Were it not for their engines they would have been indistinguishable against the inky blackness of vacuum.

They flew for about two minutes before the alien fleet finally came into visual range and they could begin to see the ships outside besides looking through their radars.

The fleet grew larger and larger as the alien carrier type ship dominated the formation with its placement at its head.

"There is our escort." The pilot said as he began to slow down, throttling back the engines as a trio of counter thrusters fired.

The Colonials had sent three ships, two of their dart like fighters and one gunboat like heavy fighter or dropship to escort them in will another flight of twenty stood guard on a Combat Air Patrol duty.

He couldn't appreciate how small they were until they flew next to the Longswords which outright dwarfed them.

"They are getting pictures of us. Don't worry we are recording too", the pilot noted as the squat angular dropship rolled on its axis with puffs of air from RCS thrusters.

A little ball mount nose was tracking them.

_-It almost looks like a human made that thing, looks ugly and rugged enough-_Riley inwardly thought as he scratched his neural uplink at the bottom of his head.

The Fighters displayed some rather advanced maneuvering skills as they cut their engines and spun around, now backwards relative to the Pelican before they fired their engines to cut their momentum.

Briefly floating past they reversed course and slid into formation alongside the dropship at a rather nerve rattling twenty meters distant, so close in fact that he felt he could reach out and touch them, giving Riley a good look inside the rather exposed cockpit and the suited figure inside.

Riley blinked once, then twice to make sure he was seeing correctly.

"It's a person in those things!" he almost uncharacteristically shouted as the pilot turned to see.

The person, their figure still mostly hidden by the suit they wore, waved back as Riley and now the Lieutenant, whom raced to the cockpit at his exclamation, saw the face of a man in his early thirties with pale white skin through their full facial visor on their flightsuits.

"How the hell can that be?" Awtry asked as Riley grabbed the comms and dialed in the _Prophesy_.

After about a second the image of the A.I.'s avatar came to life on the holo pad.

"_What is wrong captain _?" FitzGibbons asked with a rare look of concern flashing over the 18th Century naval officer face.

"These Colonials are not aliens, they are human."

The code on the avatar actually stopped for a noticeable second as the Artificial Intelligence thought.

"_That should not be possible, the possibility of two separate branches of the same species evolving on two separate worlds are so infinitesimal that it is not even noteworthy_."

Riley shook his head as he looked back at the alien…no.._Colonial_ fighter to see the pilot waving again, which Riley and the pilot both decided to return.

"I know that, and this cannot be the missing fleet of the United Rebel Front because there is no way they could have ran this far _and_ set up a colony, no less twelve. Not to mention that ship designs did not change _that_ much since 2499." He replied in exasperation as he gripped the side of his seat in frustration.

"_The possibilities of this being a trap have increased sir, I suggest caution and if history serves us well when different branches of Humanity met for the first time it did not go well_."

"Believe me FitzGibbons its noted, " Riley replied as he had to catch himself from using the nickname "Fitz" which the construct disliked for being "unprofessional".

"_Keep me informed sir. Lietenant Elroy and Ashcroft have the ship ready for combat. And it should be noted that another two squadrons of Colonial Warships are moving in from the outermost Colony's orbit, both of whom contain more ships as well as one clearly being a type of ship as large as a UNSC Cruiser. They must be trying to set up a perimeter around us. Also system traffic has increased significantly with what must be civilian vessels trying to get close and get a look at us. Needless to say our arrival has caused quite a stir."_

The feed broke as Riley stole a glance at the lieutenant, the woman shared the same look of concern he felt.

"We have to stay on our toes."

"Yes sir."

The pilot cut in.

"Sir firing counter thrusters, one minute till we dock. And I have been directed to land in the port flight "pod"."

"Order our Longswords to break off, but tell them to do so at a high burn, not full speed though, no need to give away any info we can keep."

Awtry grinned, "Sending a message sir?"

"We may have to, but pray it does not come to that."

The interceptors acknowledged and quickly yanked their craft up, spun around back towards the UNSC ship, and nearly pushed their fighters to full throttle as they boosted away.

Turning his attention to the Colonial carrier he could not help but inwardly scoff at their design, their hangar bay arrangement in particular.

"_What are they thinking? World War Two wet navy carrier warfare in space?"_

_**Colonial Battlestar Perseus**_

"So you mean to tell me that they are human?" Stradus asked his XO who stood next to him in the port side flight pod along with the assembled crew and Marines awaiting their guests.

The man, named Tyler Branton , was a younger man whom had risen through the ranks quite quickly thanks to his very good leadership skills. His attitude towards the military was always apparent and serious as he even wore his hair buzzed like a cadet in boot camp.

"Yes sir, our Flight lead got a good look at them through their ship's cockpit, clearly human." He answered with little emotion as Lieutenant Finch came alongside.

"Sir they have just landed and their escort broke off. They gave Lieutenant Cadrill a scare with the speed at which they sped off, the Viper jocks are already jealous."

Shaking his head David tried to answer the myriad of questions this revelation caused.

How could these humans not speak Caprican? They were definitely not from any of the Colonies.

The Elevator began to lower as the "_alien"_ craft came into view.

It was quite a large craft and it was clearly a troopship of some kind, reminding him of one of those "dropships" the R&D department was working on.

It was rather advanced looking, as the dull roar that came with it hovering over the deck before its landing gear extended was not the normal roar of VTOL craft was not terribly loud.

Its two stubby wings had several hardpoints that were sure to be loaded with weapons on a normal occasion. And the large turreted cannon on the nose of the craft looked powerful as it was oversized.

David's eyes glanced over the alien writing that was emboldened on the sides of the craft.

He could not understand a word of it.

"Attention!" Branton called out as the thirty Marines present snapped to, bringing their assault rifles to their chests as the deck hands standing next to a row of Vipers stood much straighter.

The "UNSC" craft powered its clearly exotic engines down as the back of the craft opened and three figures began to round the back of the craft.

Stradus's eyes widened as two soldiers literally covered in some sort of full body combat armor from head to toe rounded from the back of the craft and marched forward.

The things looked almost like some sort of those fanciful "powered exoskeletons" that futurists always dreamed about, however the soldiers faces were hidden by a full helmet and a black and blue reflective visor.

On their backs they had on some sort of backpack like attachment that he could have sworn looked like either a thruster pack (most likely) or a Gods honest jet pack.

Also in their hands were assault rifles that no doubt were making hisMarines jealous to try and looked again like they were decades if not more advanced.

Following the two black clad soldiers was a man in his mid thirties (rather young for a ship command) dressed in a light grey uniform that was far more ornamental than those in the Colonial fleet, most notably having a pair of golden pauldrons with what must have been their insignia for the rank of captain on them. On the man's chest were about a dozen campaign ribbons and several awards.

He wore a short billed hat that shared the same color of the rest of the uniform but had a golden plated bird of prey grasping a planet with four unknown letters under it.

Most striking however was that the man was wearing a small headset that plugged into his ear and shockingly, into his upper neck.

_What in Hades?_

Next out of the craft and close behind was a rather young woman no older than thirty with chocolate shoulder length brown hair kept in a smart pony tail, fair skin and green eyes. She wore a similar headset as the Captain but her uniform was much less ornamental.

Following her exit were four other soldiers, these were different from the first two in that their armor was less bulky looking and not black.

However they too were more advanced looking than anything he had seen before outside a science convention, and though more conventional looking (he could recognize _some_ attributes similar to something he could recognize as a Marine or Army soldier) they looked like they were fully encased in armor as well, bringing up the possibility they were powered suits similar to the first soldiers as well.

Along with their noticeably see through visors revealing the faces of three men and one woman beneath, their armor looked like it had seen action recently, with noticeable impact marks, dirt encrustment and even scorch marks.

_What the hell kind of an enemy was that they fought_?

As with the former soldiers They too carried weapons that were making Branton and the Marines drool (they had an odd three barrel arrangement which he had no idea how they worked) as they set up a perimeter around the craft and advanced no further with their weapons across their chests pointed down at the deck,

Though from his first impressions they were sure to be able to raise them quickly if needed and use them effectively.

So far this _UNSC_ was appearing like they were not taking any chances with this first contact, suggesting they had another one before that might have not gone well.

Or they could just be _very _militaristic in their nature.

The Captain, his lieutenant and the two black armored soldiers following them on either side walked forward as Stradus, with a look to Branton and Finch, took that fateful step forward to greet them.

It was the "other" captain that spoke first and to his surprise gave a crisp salute.

The face that Stradus now was able to look at in detail showed a man whom was a veteran no doubt but also _seemed_ intelligent.

"_Captain Scott Riley representing the United Nations Space Command or the Marathon Class Cruiser UNSC Prophesy_ _Permission to Come aboard Captain ?" _man asked.

What was strange though was when his mouth moved it did not match up to the voice he was hearing, no doubt it was a translator the man was wearing that was translating his voice as the man spoke and projecting it.

"_R&D would love those"_

Shaking the thought aside Stradus returned the salute to the fellow captain.

"As a Captain in the Unified Colonies Military and Captain of the Valkyrie Class Battlestar _Perseus _I welcome you aboard."

The two relaxed as Branton stepped forward with his hand extended, not knowing if these people even knew what the formality meant.

The woman he had offered it to took it and shook it with a gloved hand.

He noted that the Captain's hands were gloved to, maybe to prevent transmission of some unknown illness?

"Senior Officer of the Battlestar _Perseus_ Tyler Branton."

"_Chief Communications Officer First Lieutenant Samantha Awtry of the Cruiser Prophesy, a pleasure."_ She answered with her translator.

Captain Riley decided to talk.

"_It is a pleasure to make peaceful contact with you and your Unified Colonies. How our cultures became separated are a mystery to me as much as it must be to you. However as a representative of the UEG and her own colonies I express my great desire to form peaceful contact between your peoples and the people of Earth and all her colonies."_

Stradus blinked as he stared the man in the face for what must have been an awkward period of time, made much more so by the whispering amongst the Marines and the crew present.

"_Did he say what I think he said?"_

The captain had a look of concern cross his face.

"_Did I say something?"_

The Lieutenant glanced at the Captain nervously as the UNSC soldiers noticeably twitched.

Stradus cleared his throat while thinking.

"_That old wise tale is true?"_

"Im sorry, but did you say…Earth?"

_**CLIFFHANGER!…SORRY IM A DICK LOL PLEASE REVIEW**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the Delay, blame OU. I just want to remind people that how the Pillar of Autumn got a visual update (and looked badass), the Marathon Cruiser will and will probably look even cooler, especially with the addition of those large cannons like the POA got, which are definitely railguns, and are the ones which I have UNSC ships in the story such as the **_**Prophesy **_**armed with. So keep it in mind that the Prophesy and UNSC ships in upcoming Halo games, (Halo 4) will probably look different and receive the same visually improvements (vast improvements), they still retain their classic lines but look sooo much better.**

"Did you say Earth?" the Colonial captain asked, the man's voice taking a second to filter through Riley's translator's earbud.

_They knew of Earth? _

His heart began to pound faster as one thought went through his head.

"_The Cole Protocol!"_

Lieutenant Awtry looked at him with no attempt to hide what she was thinking as she switched her translator off.

"What do we do now sir?" she asked as her face was one of nothing but concern as the two ODST's acknowledged.

"Sir you may need to get back to cover, we may have to go hot if there is a breach in the Cole Protocol." Captain Garret as Sergeant Ludmilla and her Marines gave them an affirmative as well.

Riley's mind raced for answers as he ran the situation through in his head.

They were already in one war that was needless to say going pretty poorly, and not to mention that they were on an al…no Colonial ship and outnumbered hundreds to one.

_Even though their soldiers looked pretty unimpressive next to his ODSTs and Marines in full combat load out, he knew to never underestimate an opponent._

"Stay calm and simply keep talking to them, I will find out more, just be on your toes and get ready to bail if the location of Earth and Sol are compromised." He whispered over to the group.

"Yes sir."

Turning back to the now concerned looking Colonial Captain , Riley put on a fake smile.

"I am sorry about that, but how do you know of Earth?" he deadpanned.

The captain opened his mouth to answer as his senior officer beat him to the punch.

"Earth is an old legend that is a part of the Colonies' primary religion, but it is really just considered an old wives tale, but I guess it is true."

Now with yet more questions that were unanswered, Lieutenant Awtry stepped in, "So your government is not currently aware of it's location then?"

Shaking their heads the two officers stole a glance at each other.

"No we are not but your question does raise a few…"

"Oh do not be alarmed it is merely a certain..Protocol we have in place for contact procedures. Now shall we go to a more, formal location?" Riley interrupted.

_**Unified Colonies of Kobol**_

_**Colombia Class Battlestar **_

_**Galactica**_

Captain William Adama's eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as he adjusted his glasses to read the latest readout from the Battlestar's antiquated video table and comms system.

Having command of arguably the oldest serving ship in the fleet did have drawbacks like these, but the ability to command the old girl that he had earned his wings on and had fought and (no less) survived the Cylon War was an opportunity he could not pass up.

The old girl had previously been out performing one of the last training exercises with its old Viper Mrk. II's and the few Mark VII's that they had in the Launch bays near one of Tauron's moons when the call from Picon came in, at around the same time that the Galactica's DRADIS array lit up like Caprica City at night from an enormous amount Gamma and Particle Radiation that originated from deep space between the gas giant Zeus and Helios Alpha's extensive asteroid field.

The message from command had simply ordered all military vessel's in system to high alert and for condition two to be set.

It also ordered all warships closest to the event to move and assist Captain David Stradus of the Battlestar _Perseus _and her squadron of escorts to assist in any way they could.

They had been given no information on what had happened, leaving everyone to fear the worst.

Cylons.

However the latest report that Gaeta had given him quite dispelled that thoroughly.

"So what are we looking at, fraking aliens?" Tigh said with his usual gruff voice as the XO stood beside him looking at the readouts.

"I would say more like an unknown human race." Adama said as he flipped over to the images taken of the cockpit of the unknown dropship that showed the albeit grainy but still visible form of a man in and a woman standing behind a pilot.

"Huh, well they should have made formal contact by now but with the delay we wont find out for another few minutes. Do we know anything more?" Tigh asked.

Adama again flipped the page to show the image of a clearly never before seen alien warship.

It was unlike Colonial or Cylon ships as this vessel, the size of the Galactica, yet far more hefty in appearance, was very angular and boxy in appearance.

"Sheesh they certainly don't have an eye for looks do they?" Adama remarked with a chuckle as Tigh nodded.

"Though it does look like it could shrug off a nuke, that armor belt _looks_ damned thick, and I can make out enough missile pods to make a Cylon Baseship look puny , never mind the big main guns on that thing."

"Function over form I guess, it certainly still looks like a damned battleship. But…" , Adama flipped over to a close up image of the ship's bow.

"What the frak are those for?" Adama pointed to the two large, for lack of a better term, muzzles on the ship's bow that also had four larger recessed and impressive looking point defense guns around them with very well defined firing arcs.

"Frak me if I know, they can't be a gigantic main spinal gun can they?"

"If they are then whatever comes out of them sure could give anyone a bad day, cause those smaller main guns appear to be railguns."

Looking over the design Adama frowned.

Even though it was unlike anything he had seen before its design still radiated deadly power and advanced technology.

Its twelve large oversized main gun batteries, along with the unknown and possible spinal guns, the ship could pose a significant threat.

That, coupled with its large engines and no less the strangely huge wedge shaped interceptors, (the video showed them moving at speeds that a Viper was not able to achieve in any circumstance), this ship would require swift action from the Colonial Fleet if things went sour.

Though Adama had no doubt in his mind it could be handled.

"How long until we near targeting range? Once we get within 30,000 klicks I want us to halt our advance and link up with Admiral Cain and her group."

It was Lieutenant Gaeta that answered this time from his post at the bottom row of consoles in the dimly lit CIC.

"Sir we have another thirty minutes at our current rate, remember the old girl is not as fast as the _Pegasus."_

Adama shook his head, he knew what he was getting himself into when he took this position, a much faster retirement.

"How are the Vipers doing? Are they in the tubes?"

Tigh chuckled.

"Tyrol has been having more problems with the Mark II's than usual, but CAP is ready to launch at a moment's notice, Lee and Starbuck have command of the flight as well."

Adama nodded. His son whom he had scolded for following him to the Galactica was more than capable as a pilot, but he knew that Lee had far more aspiration's than just a flight stick.

Starbuck, well she was a different can of worms.

The woman was as much a danger to herself with he erratic nonchalant behavior as was any enemy or Cylon that happened to be unlucky enough to be caught in her gunsights.

Nodding Adama looked back to the DRADIS screen as the array made yet another sweep of the local space out to two hundred clicks.

The faint outline of the seven friendly contacts were in the distance as was that of the huge bulk of the Mercury Class Battlestar _Pegasus_ and her escorting squadron of five Berzerker Cruisers, Three Gunstars, two more Valkyrie Battlestars and three Siegestar Class Missile Cruisers.

Even further off was yet another element of Admiral Cain's fleet that had been in orbit of Tauron, yet another Mercury Battlestar named _Heron _along with the Marinestar _Hephaestus._

Marinestars had actually been around far longer than the Unified Colonies had, in concept anyway. Now a days they were more or less Columbia Class Battlestars that had two gigantic double flight pods full of Rhino Marine assault craft, Landing craft, Raptors and two wings of escort Vipers. However it traded out most of its main armament for room for barracks that housed two thousand Marines and dozens of APC's, Tanks, mobile Artillery and all the equipment that was needed in the event the Colonial military needed a rapid response and a foothold on a planet made.

Adama stood straighter as the eyes of everyone in the CIC bore down on him for his orders.

"Remain as is, be on watch for anything suspicious or for new orders."

_**UNSC Marathon Class Cruiser**_

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

Lieutenant Elroy frowned as he looked at three dimensional representation of the Colonial forces that were moving to set up a perimeter around the _Prophesy_ being displayed on the main holo table in the center of the brightly lit hive of activity on the bridge.

As acting captain in wake of Riley's meeting with the Colonial's , it was his duty to make sure that the ship and its two thousand strong crew and Marine detachment were safe from any harm at all costs.

For him he felt like he was put in charge of one very, very large family like the one that waited for him back home on Tribute.

"They are definitely forming a perimeter around us," his fellow Lieutenant Ashcroft said as the avatar of FitzGibbens flashed into existence.

"What have you got Fitz?" he asked as the ever stringent AI visibly grimaced at the name.

"You know I don't like that…Ash." It verbally shot back as more readouts of the enemy came up along with a whole plethora of other intel, most likely new reports and images the AI had hacked from the nearby Colonies in system.

"I find them to be highly remarkable. In many retrospecs they almost remind me of a twenty first century Earth with all the different cultures and customs that have evolved in their supposed two thousand years of being here."

"Two Thousand? Are you saying that they have been here longer than…hell Earth was still in the dark ages." Elroy said aloud as Ashcroft nodded.

"Yes, however their story and religion tells of them coming from another world called Kobol where they all used to live, having fled that world due to some natural disaster." The AI replied as scrips in some language he would have never been able to understand came up.

"For the most part they are an exact copy of many aspects of ancient Greek and some Roman cultures all blended into one. There are many holes in this theory, as we all know humanity evolved on Earth some one hundred to two hundred thousand years ago, but in all the possibilities and scenarios that have run through my programming I keep coming up with the only possible answer as to how a whole separate race of humans are out here with no connection to Earth."

"And that is?"

"They had to have been taken from Earth and planted here, by whom or what I have the slightest idea, but now that humanity, unfortunately, knows that it is not alone the possibility is far more likely now." FitzGibbons replied as his avatar folded his arms over his British Royal Navy uniform.

"You cant be saying the Covenant?"

Elroy cut Ashcroft off, "There is no way that could be the case, if the Covenant found Earth back then we'd…we'd all be either a distant memory or a slave race like the Grunts."

Elroy shuddered at the very thought.

"So another alien race?" the helmsman asked as he took a sip from the cup of coffee he was holding.

"Most likely." The AI answered.

Elroy held up his hands, "Please people as fascinating as I find this all to be we must deal with the matters at hand. FitzGibbons, what are the technical readouts that you were able to get?"

The AI nodded as the images swirled back to the enemy ships and showing what must have been their command ship as it was clearly the largest one and had been a large red blob on the Cruiser's sensors, spectro scopes and Radar for the past hour now.

_Damn they like them big, it's the size of an Everest Class Battlecruiser._

"To be fair I cant get all the information on them, and I still suggest we don't pick a fight. However from what I can see, usually from hacking civilian broadcasts and military enthusiast entertainment channels, I would assume that we have technical superiority to them." FitzGibbons stated a matter of factly as the readouts he had managed to procure flashed on the screen.

"Their main armament consists of railguns but I am lead to assume that ours far outrange theirs. Nuclear weapons , Electro Thermal Boosted Chemical Cannons, Missiles which I am not too worried about causing problems. Old style auto cannons and honest to god Flak guns…in space."

Elroy winced as he could only imagine how hazardous flak made space in a low orbit while Ashcroft let loose a sly grin, "Well at least this time if shit hits the fan we shouldn't have too much problems…"

"Never underestimate your opponent, those weapons and those nukes can still hurt us. And we are outnumbered and IN their primary system with over 150 warships and counting that we have spotted around the system." Elroy cut in as the AI agreed.

"We are currently standing at 70 percent combat efficiency. Both MAC guns are now back online, we are down three railgun turrets and our missile stocks are at 55 percent. We only have one Shiva left and our Fury Tactical nukes are depleted."

"What is the status of the Slipspace Drive?" Ashcroft asked with concern stretching over his face.

" It is still being repaired." The AI answered as more technical readouts appeared on the screen.

"So the damage was more extensive than we thought?"

"Yes, the mountings are needing to be totally reinforced with what supplies we have on board. It should take eight hours or more to replace."

Ashcroft shook his head as he paced to the fore of the bridge past rows of men and woman at work at their stations and looking out at the inky blackness of space where, though he could not see it, the Colonials were moving to encircle the cruiser.

He was not a very religious man, but he kept getting a nagging feeling that something about these Colonials was not right…

_**Valkyrie Battlestar Perseus**_

"_And that is how was came into this system. Do remember that as protocol dictates I am forced to withhold certain information from you." _The Earther finished as Stradus leaned back in his seat across the table in one of the briefing rooms normally reserved for the Battlestar's Viper squadrons.

"So let me get this straight," his XO said, clearing his throat as he took another glance at the two "ODSTs" as they were called that were standing at ease behind the UNSC captain and his officer, their imposing forms, armor and weapons made his Marines in the room look like they were weak in comparison.

"You are involved in a war with a coalition of …alien species bent on the destruction of humanity?"

The two nodded as the woman, Lieutenant Awtry replied. "You saw the short video we provided."

_Boy did we, not to mention that holograms are way beyond current Colonial tech._

The short video had shown him all he needed to know about the capabilities of these Earthers.

He did not want to mess with them if he could avoid it.

Which was probably the point of showing that video.

He of course did not see much, and certainly not enough to gauge their capabilities, but the simple facts he had seen so far presented, namely holding their own against an alien assault was one indicator, aside from the technology he had seen so far.

He had his doubts however.

They had to be hiding something about this "war".

"As hard as I and many others find it to believe that there are honest to _gods_ aliens out there, I will take your word for it. But if you plan on getting us involved the Colonies will have no part." He replied matter of factly as the UNSC captain shook his head.

"As much as it pains me to say this it will not matter what you think. Our appearing in your system may be by mistake but believe me, the Covenant's only care is that ALL of humanity is destroyed, UEG or not. We don't want your help, and I mean no offense I don't want to drag your people into danger, but you must be prepared for whatever contact you may make with these ….aliens."

Stradus had to respect those words, but his underlying suspicion of them did not.

His XO decided to cut the tension in the room before it built up.

"So how you came to be here aside what can you tell me about the UNSC? We have given you information about the Colonies."

The Earther captain nodded in agreement.

"You are right. The UNSC is actually the military arm of the UEG, or Unified Earth Government. The UEG is the ultimate authority but with the vast distances associated with space outside Earth's immediate vicinity the UNSC manages most matters on Earth's colony worlds alongside of its civilian counterpart the Colonial Authority. "

"So I take it the UEG is a democracy right?" Stradus asked as Lieutenant Awtry answered.

"Yes, the UEG consists of all of the Nations and former nations of Earth and its star system, named Sol, and those nations act as representatives for their people in the UN, or United Nations, which is what the UEG originates out of but ultimately controls."

"It sounds like a huge Quarum," his XO replied aloud as the woman continued.

"Overtime with the expansion of the Colonies and UNSC controlled space the Nations have more or less become _technically _non-existent. They really are only there to help divide the government by regions and people."

"Just how big is UNSC controlled space?" he asked.

The woman paused and looked over to the Captain, who answered for her.

"The UNSC and the UEG control approximately 800 Colonies spread across 245 star systems."

Stradus nearly spat his water out of his mouth.

"Your joking?"

A bemused look swept across the Earther's face before it was quickly hidden.

"No Captain, I have no reason to lie or anything to gain."

And he had thought the Colonies were big.

How long had Earth been travelling the stars?

How many possible Billions were under its control?

"Excuse me if I get religious, but are the Sacred Scrolls and the Gods prevalent on Earth and its colonies?" his XO asked with a look of curiosity.

_Stradus had wondered the same too._

"We have never heard of these Sacred Scrolls before, and as to your Gods no. Earth and its colonies are very diverse with dozens of varying religions and cultures. However there are three major religions to which a majority of people who profess to a religion affiliate to that are monotheist."

Branton was known to be religious, but normally relaxed about, but Stradus watched his face twitch slightly at the admittedly surprising news.

He himself was never very religious, but the revelation was slightly disconcerting to him.

_No telling what all the wack jobs on Sagittaria and Scorpia will think of this._

_**One Hour Later**_

_**UNSC Pelican class Dropship **_

"Well that went well." Lieutenant Awtry huffed as she sat beside Riley on one of the few unoccupied seats in the Pelican's troop bay.

With a lurch of acceleration the dropship boosted away from the bulk of the Colonial warship and its fleet and back to the _Prophesy_.

"It could have been worse, but this looks like a great promise for relations." Riley answered, wincing as the strange icy feeling went down his spine as he disconnected his translator from his Neural Interface.

"That is true, but their experience with Artificial Intelligence is, concerning given our use of them. What did they call them, Cylons?" Awtry thought aloud.

The war that they had described sounded like something straight out of old 20th and 21st century movies where AI's tried to exterminate their creators.

The Cylon war as they called it had certainly been brutal, and explained the Colonials war footing after a 39 year and counting Armistice.

The topic of UNSC AI's had not come up thankfully but he knew that they would have to be informed carefully as to FitzGibbon's and others existence.

The brief history they had been given only raised questions as to where they had come from.

They had been shocked when Riley more or less said that without a matter of a doubt humanity had evolved on Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago.

They had begun to stray towards the topic of religion, which he had tried to avoid like the plague.

He had grown up in a Catholic home and observed it himself, but he had never really considered himself much of a practitioner and as most citizens of the UNSC did, let people go about their business.

"As of now we will wait for the civilian leadership, but in the time being we are to make a formal meeting with this Admiral Cain on board her flagship the _Pegasus_." Riley said as he pulled out his personal data pad to show the image of the monstrous colonial Battlestar at the fore of the sizable fleet that was encircling the _Prophesy._

Taking a look around the troop bay at the Marines and ODSTs present, he connected to the com system of the Pelican with his neural implant via a simple thought.

FitzGibben's accented voice rang through his head as he contacted the bridge of his ship.

"_Yes sir? I have received your data package about the meeting, I must say they are ….interesting. How will my presence be explained? Or are we just not going to tell?"_

"_No we need to tell them. When I get back I want a feed with this Admiral Cain. However I want the ship to be on high alert for any possible hostile actions from these Colonials._

_**Battlestar Pegasus**_

_**Mercury Class Battlestar**_

_**40,000 Kilometers off of the UNSC Prophesy's bow **_

"What else did they say?" A stern faced Admiral Helena Cain asked as the voice of Captain James Stradus reverberated throughout the nerve center of the behemoth of armor plate, weapons ports, hangar bays and engines.

"_Aside from basic information that is it. They are friendly enough, but I cant help shake the feeling that they are hiding something big from us."_

The senior officer of the _Pegasus_ , Cain's longtime friend Jurgen Belzan came up next to her as the Admiral listened intently.

"Why do you say that? If half of what they say is true then this could have dramatic implications not only on technological grounds but on almost all levels of Colonial society." Cain replied as she kept her eyes on the video feeds showing the UNSC Cruiser.

"_I know but when we mentioned about our experience with the Cylons, they looked like they had something to hide. I cant be sure of cou_r_se but I would be on the lookout for any signs of deception. However At the same time they seem to be friendly and willing to become partners."_

Cain nodded, "Good job Stradus, I will take full command from here."

"_Yes man, Perseus out"_

The line cut as Belzan cleared his throat, "The _Heron _and the _Hephestus _ have entered the formation. Our Vipers have been intercepting civilian vessels trying to get a look."

As he finished that Cain turned on the radio frequency from one of the _Pegasus's _Vipers as the tinny voice filtered through the CIC.

"_Charlie One here to Civilian craft, you are in a restricted area of this system, turn back now or your vessel will be disabled and you and your crew detained. Turn back to Tauron now and keep a radius of 200,000 kilomters distance."_

The angry voice of an obvious activist with a Gemonese accent of a younger woman angrily replied.

"_Frak you I have every right to be here. You cannot hide this the people deserve to know. What are you going to do, shoot me?"_ the woman taunted.

Seeking answers the Viper pilot called the _Pegasus _for orders as Cain herself picked up the phone.

"Give them a burst of warning fire across their nose, that should get the bastard's attention." Cain ordered with annoyance.

They had been dealing with so many Civilian's trying to get a look that half of her fleet's Vipers and Raptors were tied up dealing with the civilians.

"_Yes ma'am."_

The Viper complied and sent a one second burst across the sweeping form of the pleasure craft's nose, yellow tracers of 25 mm cannon shells stitching a line into space where the craft would be in a second.

The civilian ship immediately slowed down with its counter thrusters as cursing filled the radios.

"_Turn back now."_ The Viper pilot sternly ordered.

The civilians, seeing how serious the military was, quickly complied as it spun over and was escorted away.

"This is giving me a headache. What are the latest developments with the UNSC ship?"Cain asked rubbing her head.

"Nothing so far." Beltzan answered.

Nodding Cain began to make it back to her quarters just before the comms officer suddenly rebuked Beltzan's last remark.

"Ma'am we are getting a hail from the UNSC ship."

Turning around and getting a bemused look from Beltzan, she replied, "Put them on."

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Are we sure we want to tell them? We can at least wait till we meet with the civilian leadership and this Admiral Cain face to face." Lieutenant Ashcroft countered as Riley listened on with a cup of coffee in his hand.

"I understand your concerns but it is important that we don't surprise them with this revelation, as it is potentially detrimental to our possible future relationship with these Colonials." FitzGibbons answered from his holo-pedistal with his arms crossed.

"But what if they become hostile?" Ashcroft asked with clear concern.

"They outnumber us twenty five to one…and that is not counting those snub fighters of theirs." Elroy chimed in from the other side of the holo table.

Present on the bridge were all of the lead officers of the ship, the _Prophesy's _new CAG, James Gordan who replaced his predecessor after her Longsword took a plasma pulse to the cockpit, Captain Garret, a smattering of several of Marine Seargants and officers, including Sergeant Ludmilla, and towering at the end of the table , one Spartan II Supersoldier with his helmet laying on the table.

"Permission to speak sir?" Kurt asked as Riley nodded.

"At ease."

"Sir." Kurt nodded as he relaxed from attention, "I agree that telling them before hand is probably the best course of action we can take, but we need to be prepared in case they start shooting. Also even though these Colonials claim to not have the location of Earth we have to make sure that they do not. Given what we have seen so far of their technology, if the Covenant were to attack them and get a hold of Earth's location, provided they have it, the Cole Protocol would be rendered moot."

The others nodded in agreement as Riley frowned.

"I will try to get confirmation on that but I will not allow an operation to take their navigation systems. We will contact them and tell them of our use of AI and explain that our are programmed with laws to avoid what happened with these Cylons while being treated as equals."

Kurt nodded, "Yes sir."

Riley took another drink from his coffee before looking at Kurt and the other officers again.

"The main reason I am doing this is because if for some reason this does make them hostile then I would much rather be here than _on_ their ship."

Kurt gave a look of understanding as he nodded.

"Yes sir."

The others did as well as the captain nodded to FitzGibbens, whose code intensified.

"I am having trouble syncing our comms with theirs, we can still communicate with them but most of the ships nearby the Colonial flagship will also pick up the signal."

"Do it."

_**Pegasus**_

"_Hello Admiral Cain this is Captain Riley of the UNSC Prophesy. I believe we have something to discuss."_ The clearly translated voice of the "Earther" came through the CIC's speakers slightly muffled.

Cain raised her eyebrows as she picked up the headset by the main tactical table, taking a glance at Beltzan before answering.

"This is Admiral Cain, what is it you have to discuss?" she asked as the communication officer motioned pointed out to Beltzan that the immediate ships in the _Pegasus's _squadron were receiving the message as well.

"_In our initial meeting with Captain Stradus we learned a brief history of your war with your enemies, these Cylons. We know that due to their cybernetic nature of their intelligence and being Artificial Intelligence that you would have an extreme, and very understandable, aversion to them."_

Cain nodded as the crew listened in with growing interest.

"_I am informing you beforehand in the wish that it may not hamper our relations and negotiations with you, that in the UNSC, Artificial Intelligence is widely used in the military and to a lesser extent Civilian sector as well."_

Two words felt cemented into Cain's mind.

The collective mood on all of the Colonial ships that heard the broadcast changed.

_**Viper 126**_

_**Captain Kara Thrace of Battlestar Galactica**_

Kara gave the controls of her Viper a death grip as her headset picked up the sketchy transmission from the UNSC ship as her and Lee's squadron of 20 Vipers flew over the blunt dorsal bow of a Bezerker Class Cruiser twenty clicks off of the _Galactica_ and in close formation with the _Pegasus._

"_Did you hear that?" _Lee's voice came over the radio as she keyed her mike to cancel out the explosion of fleet wide chatter.

"Yeah I did, what are our orders?" Kara asked with the sinking feeling in her gut that despite the Earther's good intentions, they had just made relations go sour.

_**Battlestar Perseus**_

"Those frakers could have had an AI on this ship!" Delon Finch exclaimed from his post as Stradus slammed his hand angrily on the tactical table.

"I WILL HAVE PROFESSIONALISM ON MY SHIP!"

The commotion immediately died off as Stradus recomposed himself.

_I was afraid I had something to be wary of, but…_

"This should not change anything. They had no way of knowing of the Cylons until they met us. And they clearly meant to warn us in good faith to keep good relations. Do we have any orders from _Pegasus?"_

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

Riley watched the Colonial fleet with growing concern and worry.

The explosion of chatter among the Colonial fleet was so much that Lieutenant Awtry was having trouble going through all of it.

"We may have underestimated the effect my presence would have." FitzGibbons spoke from his projection five feet behind him as he walked towards the fore of the bridge.

_This might not end well after all. Can we have first contact go our way for once?_

"Order the ship to tactical alert but don't we overt, Lets see if we can salvage this."

_**Galactica**_

"It's a fraking Cylon trap!" Tigh cursed as Adama looked to Gaeta and Dee.

"Tell all fighters to continue their pre-assigned duties. We will wait for orders but I will not have this turn into a shootout."

Adama had almost visibly cringed when he heard, along with half the fleet, that Earther speak those words.

_Please don't let this go to hell._

_**Pegasus**_

The absolute chaos Cain was dealing with now made the Colonial fleet look pathetically unprofessional to the extreme.

Captains of different ships were all demanding orders or begging to shoot, and the captain of one of her escorts was all but about to pull the trigger and send the encounter into a downward spiral to which it, and her career, would never recover.

"_Rega_ you are to stand down immediately! That is a direct order!" Cain all but screamed into the headset as she thought of putting a bullet in between the eyes of the Virgonese captain who was yelling just as loud on the other end.

"_I will not stand down and let these imposters lead us into a Cylon trap! We must act now!"_

Cain finally lost her cool as she roared back in return.

"I WILL order my gunnery crews to take out your engines if you do anything! You are to stand down or be removed by whatever means necessary of command!"

Cain was already ordering one of her Bezerker Cruisers, the _Io,_ to position itself in between the rogue Siegestar and the Earther ship, which the larger cruiser was fast moving to do.

Cain, after failing to make contact with the ships few Marines that could take the command away from the rebelling captain and slave the ship's computers to the _Pegasus's _own command, had sent a shuttle full of Marines to take the ship back, by force if necessary.

This break down in protocol was going to be a huge stain on her record and that of the Colonial Fleet.

"_Go to hell. I will NOT allow this to happen!"_ the Siegestar's captain screamed over the line, forcing Cain to pull the headset away from her ear just as the line was cut.

"Someone get me a damned…!"

She was again cut off as Beltzan and the DRADIS operator yelled at the top of their lungs.

"The _Rega _just let loose a full spread of missiles! All anti shipping nukes! Dear Gods It launched almost all of her load!"

Cains heart caught in her throat.

"Can the _Io _intercept? What about any passing Vipers?" she breathed as she cast aside all veils of composer and rain to the main dradis display while watching over fifty 20 megaton nuclear missiles, the entire anti shipping nuclear arsenal of a Siegestar, leave ghostly contrails as it speed away from the blunt triangular form of the Siegestar and towards the UNSC ship.

"Negative she only managed to pick off one and the Vipers were unable to accelerate to close to engagement range!"

She was helpless.

It was all over.

"Gods help us."

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! Enemy missiles inbound! Reads fifty nuclear grade missiles! Time to impact one minute by approximate speed!" Lieutenant Elroy shouted at the top of his lungs as Riley raced to the main display to see the radar profiles of fifty missiles heading straight for them.

The Klaxons throughout the ship wailed as people race to their battlestations while the engines pulsed as Ashcroft turned the cruiser into the threat to present a smaller profile.

Though they were moving slow by UNSC standards they would still be on them very soon.

"Intercept them! Direct what Longswords we have that are launched with Laser pods to take them out if they can." He ordered as FitzGibbons assumed command of the Cruiser's Point Defenses and Laser Pods.

"Targets indentified, targeting with Anti Missile Lasers."

A Longsword at its full maximum burn streaked from around the _Prophesy_ from a range of 300 miles, with a pulse from its underslung Laser Pod it had luckily been equipped with, eviscerated one of the missiles as the other interceptors boosted to the maximum amount of Gees their crews could take.

The Marathon cruiser's sixty 50mm Hellilical Railguns activated and in a second charged their electromagnetic rails with thousands of watts of power as they swung to face the threat.

"Engaging."

Invisible in the blackness of vacuum, eight beam of pure focused rays of energy cooked the frames of the large Colonial missiles.

Five small and silent explosions signaled the death of the missiles and their deadly payloads as the Lasers retargeted and fired another concentrated pulse, taken down nine more as the other five Longswords that had been launched took down another five as the range dropped down to less than a thousand miles.

As another five were burned out of existence the CIWS, the missiles at the edge of their range, sent a hail of accurate fire at the nukes.

50 millimeter tungsten rounds accelerated to tremendous speeds, tore the missiles apart as Close In Weapon Systems swatted them out of the sky with AI guided accuracy.

Not a single one made it closer than 70 kilometers.

Riley clenched his fist.

"Bastards. Jam them on all frequencies and ready ALL weapons. Launch all of our fighters!"

His orders were carried out as fast as the crew could accomplish them.

_**Pegasus**_

The systems on the Mercury Class Battlestar were the most advanced on any Colonial ship and represented the pinnicle of Colonial Post War computer sciences.

However against the assault of a full blown jamming effort of a UNSC Marathon Class Cruiser, those systems sparked and struggled to stay alive as Cain raced to Beltzans side at the tactical table.

"They shot down all of the missiles but with this jamming we cannot get through to them, we are having trouble just contacting our own fighters but the effects have a radius of 400,000 kilometers. We can see however that they are launching fighters and turning to face us."

She slammed her fist on the table.

The Marines she had sent to the _Rega _ been forced to reclaim the ship by force, using stun grenades and ultimately putting a burst of gunfire into the Captain's head, leaving it a bloody stump.

"Launch all Vipers and Raptors, keep trying to hail them…."

Cain was interrupted by a 1000 ton MAC round from the _Prophesy's _number one Heavy MAC slicing through the 800 meter long Siegestar.

With no shields as was normally faced by the UNSC, the round hit the ship with enough force to cause the ship to ripple like the surface of water, though it was so fast that a person would be lucky to see more than a glimpse.

The Siegestar's armor provided as much resistance as paper to fire as the ship was wholly annihilated.

The only left on the _ Pegasus's_ DRADIS screen was the a rapidly expanding debris field with the largest piece being a 100 meter section of the Colonial warship's engine block.


	5. Chapter 5

_**I am soo sorry for the wait, with school, work and an internship I have no time. So I made it worth the wait. With the Christmas break coming up I can update faster, expect another one around New Years or even before.**_

_**Battlestar Galactica**_

"Get those Frakking Alert Vipers out of the tubes! What are our orders from Admiral Cain!" Adama shouted over the chaos that had become the CIC as soon as theSeigestar _Rega_ was destroyed, no, obliterated by the UNSC ship.

Felix Gaeta had to yell over the conflicting reports and status updates from the various officers as he pressed his headset closer to his ears.

"Sir _Pegasus_ is ordering all ships to take defensive actions _only_ and to fire only if fired upon. She is ordering all Vipers and Raptors back from the defense perimeter and to form a standard battle line for interception."

"Like that will work on whatever the frak they hit _Rega_ with." Tigh mumbled.

Stepping up to the Command Table Adama reached for his head set as he bellowed out orders.

"Come about heading Zero Eight point four bearing positive 30 degrees relative to the flagship. I want our escorts in a tight formation and our damned Vipers off of the deck yesterday! Weapons status!"

"All Flak batteries are loaded but we are experiencing problems with three of our mounts. Triple A is all online and our main weapons are loading."

"I want safeties off of our nukes." Adama ordered coldly as he watched the display showing DRADIS readouts and the mess that was the Colonial fleet.

The UNSC ship was reversing its thrust and was backpeddling away from the Colonial fleet before rotating to bring its port side broadside to bare.

The Colonial fleet was regrouping into a standard battle formation with a tight spacing of ten kilometers between each ship, though escorts were far closer.

However two Gunstars and the Cruiser _Hedom_ from the _Perseus's_ squadron were moving forward with deadly intent.

_**Pegasus**_

"Stand down you frakkers!" Cain roared into the handset as the line between the flagship and the Cruiser was cut.

Cursing in string of more and more eyebrow raising words she slammed the head set down.

"Order all ships to fire only if fired upon! I wont let this turn into a slugging match but I want all ships to know that I will not tolerate captains whom start a war!" She roared as Beltzan, Fisk, and the other officers raced to accomplish their orders.

Vipers shot out of the _Pegasus's _ launch tubes and thundered (if the term could be applied to space combat) into formation and position to cover the fleet and establish a defensive line around and in front of the fleet.

"Ma'am even though we "technically" fired the first shots the Earther's response was declaring out right war." Beltzan spoke as he stood behind her.

Cain turned to glare at the man who after years of service under her did not shy away from the look that could make a Centurian cringe.

"We must take action. It was quite clear to them that we did not order that attack and that attack failed to harm them. And even though it was only the offending ship that was destroyed, the use of over whelming force along with the lack of any communications is a sign that they have no interest in.."

The DRADIS operator interrupted him.

"Sir the _Hedom _is opening fire!"

Outside in the cold vacuum the 800 meter long Cruiser unleashed a volley of twenty conventional missiles and a salvo from its main rail guns as the two Gunstars accompanying it let loose volleys from their main guns, sending several dozen slugs the sizes of large cars screaming towards the distant target at the very extreme of their range.

"Frak!" Cain hissed.

The slugs and missiles took some forty seconds to cross the distance towards the Earth ship, which with burns from its maneuvering thrusters angled "down" away from the seemingly slow moving projectiles which over shot the Earther battleship by several kilometers while several of the missiles exploded prematurely halfway to their target uselessly.

"Why are those missiles malfunctioning?" Cain asked as her weapon's officer spoke up.

"Ma'am the last readings from the missiles indicate a large and dramatic rise in temperature before catastrophic failure."

The admiral raised her eyebrows.

"A directed energy weapon?"

"Perhaps ma'am, how they achieve power ratios adequate for repeated pulses I don't know." The man replied as the rest of the missiles were swatted out of the sky by the Earther's insanely accurate and long ranged point defenses.

Cain was about to try and desperately raise the offending Colonial and Earther ships again as the DRADIS display lit up with targets.

"Enemy launching swarm of missiles! DRADIS reads fifteen contacts!"

"Evasive actions! Flak batteries to full and have Vipers angle to intercept!"

"Ma'am they are moving faster than any missile I have seen before!" Beltzan announced with growing alarm as the missiles tore through the space between the two sides in a fraction of the time it had taken their Colonial counterparts to do.

Vipers pushed their boosters to maximum in a vain attempt to get into a proper firing position to intercept as the missiles blew through the outer defenses and towards the Colonial fleet, now either scattering or throwing up a wall of Flak.

"They are angling in on the _Hedom _and the gunstars." Beltzan called out as the contacts shot across the DRADIS screens towards the Colonial ships.

The _Hedom_'s flak barrage, a wall of shrapnel and explosions that could stop a good sized barrage of Cylon missiles, only knocked two of the fourteen missiles as a third managed to be felled by one of the streams of 30mm Point Defense shells.

Five Archer Missiles hit the cruiser , five fantastic explosions ripping into the 800 meter long warship in the process.

Archer missiles, their fusion enhanced and shaped charge warheads designed to cut through up to a meter and a half of reinforced Titanium A battleplates that were further refined with carbon fibers, each hit the ship with two megatons worth of TNT.

The ship shuddered as if it had taken a punch to the chin.

As the Archer's payload hit most of its deadly force was directed into a cone of superhot plasma that cut through layers of think armor plating that could take a hit from a small sized fighter nuke.

The entire starboard side hangar bay meant to handle the cruiser's small Viper wing was ripped open as crew and even a Viper that had been sitting ready to launch in tube were sucked out.

The engines flickered and sputtered as the cruiser tried to correct itself with only half of its engines online as debris and secondary explosions silently tore through parts of the ship.

The smaller gunstars didn't fare any better as their smaller flak fields and point defenses only managed to fell two of the missiles as the Archers tore into them.

One of the Gunstars was left a drifting wreck with hull breaches over much of its surface and secondary explosions and fires tearing through it as the other Gunstar suffered heavy damage to its main batteries and engines.

"_Hedom _reports heavy damage! _Dian _is out of action and _Firemaker_ is combat ineffective!"

Cain made up her mind right then as she grabbed the fleet wide head set and with one last look to Beltzan gave out her orders.

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Two enemy ships disabled and a third took heavy damage but is still combat effective. Enemy is closing and large formations of Colonial single ships are converging on our position relative to our orientation. Second group of Colonial warships with the _Perseus _in the lead are coming to attempt to attack from behind and above." FitzGibbons called off as Riley watched impassively on the large Holo Screens as one of the Colonial ships hit by a mere salvo from Archer Missiles , the larger light cruiser sized contact, vented atmosphere to eliminate the fires that the eleven missiles strikes had tore into the ship.

Just fifteen missiles.

It reminded him of just how more advanced the Covenant were.

Back during the Insurrections and the Rebellion War (or One Year War if you were a colonist) Archers and their predecessors the Ares missile could take out a standard, modern UNSC Frigate in as little as ten hits if they made it past the point defenses.

The _Prophesy _ and Marathon cruisers like her that were built just after the end of the One Year War could take as many as five dozen hits to the main armored belt from modern Archer missiles before critical damage was incurred (barring of course lucky hits to critical areas) in simulations, but still with the amount of missiles a cruiser or even a frigate could let fly if necessary every single missile was a major threat.

Against the Covenant he had grown used to having to expend on average a hundred (and those were missiles that managed to get past the Covenants pulse lasers) missiles just to crack the shields on a Covenant Frigate.

Around him the bridge and its crew was a scene of controlled chaos as men, woman and AI went about their duties with calm and professionalism that he had come to truly recognize after the two years fighting the Covenant.

Though his crew were combat veterans of many battles he could still see the looks of worry and apprehension that their faces held, pushed aside by training and determination.

"Enemy Formations of singleships are closing in two 13,000 kilometers, at present velocity will enter projected firing range in five minutes." Lieutenant Elroy called off as Riley watched the sensor contacts that held the Colonial ship which he had set foot on not only an hour ago explode with new radar contacts.

"Enemy squadron has opened fire! Large numbers of lower velocity railgun slugs and missiles are incoming!" Lieutenant Ashcroft called out as FitzGibbons took over the helm.

The cruisers engines flared as the ship again maneuvered like a civilian pleasure craft hundreds of times smaller to avoid one of the salvos of Railgun fire as the pulse lasers pulsed and vaporized yet more of the incoming swarm of slow moving missiles, while the Helix 50mm Helilical Railgun CIWS tore yet more out of the skies in short accurate bursts before each of the _Prophesy's_ sixty five mounts switched to a new target in under a second.

Several of the slugs still managed to hit the Cruiser, which rocked slightly as Riley reached out his hand for the shaking that didn't come.

"Damage report!"

"Ten hits to the port side. Armor deflected or absorbed most of the damage but armor in section 9 is damaged. Only minor damage sir, but more fire is incoming along with approximately 90 Single ships."

"What of the main group of fighters?" Riley asked FitzGibbons as the AI brought up the radar showing a swarm of red contacts that the 24 blue wedge shaped icons that were his Longsword Interceptors were staring down.

"Lieutenant Gordan and his fighters are all loaded up for basic Interception duties with pulse laser packs, 16 AGSM-10 missiles and four AGSM-8 anti shipping fusion missiles along with standard 60mm Helilical Railcannons." Ashcroft answered as the Point Defenses intercepted more missiles and another Colonial Railgun slug hit the hide of his ship.

He had had enough.

"Lieutenant Elroy fire a full broadside of our Railgun Cannons. Target enemy light cruiser analogue named Battlestar class _Perseus."_

The Weapons Officer nodded as he swivled the ship's nine dual barreled turrets that could fire on her broadside into position as their magnetic rails charged.

"Locked on and ready to fire." The Lieutenant calmly stated as he stared at the display in front of him while FitzGibbons quietly rechecked the human's aim.

"Fire."

The ship shuddered slightly as eighteen one ton projectiles shot forth at just under ten thousand kilometers a second.

The Colonial ship did not even have time to try and evade in vain as the slugs crossed the 30,000 kilometers in seconds.

The 900 meter long baby battlestar almost seemed to keel about in place as the slugs tore through its armor with horrific results.

Part of the port side flight pod shattered outwards explosively as dozens of decks were opened.

One of the main engines were knocked out as secondary explosions and shrapnel destroyed even more of the precious innards of the ship.

The _Perseus _fired back with the few weapons it had as power fluctuations coursed through it. Its engines went offline while the operational thrusters tried to correct its almost terminal course.

The _Prophesy _seemingly ignored the few blows it took as the cruiser focused its power to its railguns to recharge faster while the _Perseus_ managed to let loose a small spread of her nukes and another salvo from her main bow guns.

The ten nuclear missiles didn't stand a change at getting past much less the laser net as the point defenses as the heavier bow cannon shells only managed to cause a minor hull breach in return on the UNSC ship with a lucky hit to an already damaged armor section.

The UNSC ship's forward railgun mount fired a second time.

Two more comet like slugs opening up rents the Valkrye class Battlestar's alligator like bow and sending shockwaves and explosion tearing the ship apart.

The Battlestar began to roll lazily in space as a fuel bunker exploded outwards, gutting the already heavily damaged port flight pod as debris cluttered the space around the disabled ship.

_**Colonial Viper**_

"Frak me they got the _Perseus!"_ Racetrack shouted out as the _Galactica's_ squadrons of Vipers joined those of the _Pegasus _and the other ships of the fleet, going in at almost a full burn as the DRADIS image of the "UNSC" ship came on Starbuck's radar.

"Good lord that's four ships they have either destroyed or disabled." The voice of Apollo breathed over the radio.

"Everyone relax. We outnumber these bastards twenty something ships to one and what, a hundred Vipers to one?" she replied as she shifted her position while two squadrons from one of the other battlestars took the head of the gigantic formation of Vipers and Raptors sent to engage the enemy.

"I know but…."

He was interrupted by Boomer, piloting one of the AWACS Raptors, yelling over every frequency.

"Contact! Closing fast!"

Starbuck frantically looked at her DRADIS to see the very faint outlines of twenty three contacts closing in at _very_ high speed.

"All Vipers break!" Apollo roared just as twelve streaking missiles that came seemingly out of nowhere , each one half the length of a Viper's main fuselage, all but erased the Vipers that had just pulled ahead of the formation in obscenely large explosions.

Twenty four other Vipers from the various squadrons also suffered the same fate as Starbuck yanked back on the stick just in time to see a huge black wedge shaped Earth fighter flash by her with two huge boosters briefly lighting up the cockpit.

"Mother Fraker!" she cursed as she reversed thrust and applied full left rudder, spinning the nimble fighter on its axis with jets from its thrusters and slamming her into the seat with centrifugal force.

The Earther fighters moved with an almost surreal agility considering their size, dodging several streams of hastily aimed fire from Vipers.

In seconds they had shot through the formations that were frantically turning around to attack, but the Raptors at the rear of the squadron, acting as AWACS birds or loaded down with anti ship missiles and nukes, were helpless.

"Raptors go evasive now!" Apollo screamed as Starbuck redlined the engines of her Mark VII Viper, the cockpit shuddering as she poured refined Tylium into her engines.

Boomer threw her Raptor into a wild spin and launched two counter measure rockets just as the others began to try and evade.

The ones that were targeted were not so lucky.

The leading edges of the wings closer to the cockpit area one the UNSC Fighters (or what looked like one from the few images they had taken glances over before contact had gone to hell), flashed as large streaks of slugs of an obvious large caliber stitched a line in space.

The Raptors simply turned to shrapnel or short lived smears of fire as twenty Raptors vanished from Starbuck's DRADIS.

"Get on their tails and get me a lock!" Racetrack roared as Starbuck and a flock of Vipers behind her poured on the speed with their Boosters as they all firewalled their Turbos.

The range only dropped when the Fighters all pulled tight turns and flipped back around for another pass, baring down on at least a hundred pissed off Colonial Viper pilots.

"All pilots break and turn! Time it earlier to compensate for their speed. DO NOT TAKE THEM HEAD ON!" Adama all but yelled to the Galactica's squadron.

Most of the other flight leads must have yelled the same orders as the Vipers all broke and began their counter maneuvers before they normally would.

Cursing Starbuck pulled up on the stick and reversed thrust just as several streaking white tracers from the enemy's cannons flew past her canopy.

Despite the orders several more Vipers flickered off of her DRADIS as she jammed the stick down and began to flip over, whatever the Earther fighter's cannons fired absolutely shredding six more Vipers and completely tearing off the engine block of an eighth.

The odd sensation sudden gravity came over her as she flipped over just as the huge form of an Earther figher shot over her, its two huge engines briefly lighting up her cockpit as her targeting computer managed to get a brief bead on the thing and the reticule for her Viper Mk. VII's three 25mm Cannons lined up with the main fuselage of the black craft.

Starbuck grinned as she pulled the trigger and felt her small fighter shudder as a line of orange tracers from her guns hit the aft assembly of the fighter.

She was about to let loose a cheer of victory when she noticed the rounds hit with less damage than she was used to racking up against target drones, _far_ less damage.

A small puff of gases and four or five pieces from the elongated tail section were all that tore off as only five or more holes were punched through the hull by her shells.

Not the flaming hulk she would have expected.

"Frak me!"

Gunning the throttle and hitting her turbos yet again she tried to stay on the tail of the ship only to have it out run her yet again in a vain attempt to catch up.

Her radio crackled with more chatter from one of the nearby Viper wings.

"_I got a hit! One is damaged!...Wait its coming back around."_

The chatter abruptly cut off as the Viper identified on the DRADIS as Green Seven off of the _Hyperion _winked off of the screen from an enemy missile.

"_Any Vipers with missiles switch to them and used sustained fire!" _Apollo roared over the comm.

The Earther fighters flipped over on their axis and fired off another volley of missiles as they began to reverse their thrust.

Starbuck let off a strangled curse as a Viper from her squadron turned into flying bits of fragments.

_**GA-TL1 Longsword Interceptor **_

_**FS-108 TFIS off of UNSC Prophesy**_

"Good kills. Don't get over eager and don't let them surround you. We may be faster but they are more maneuverable and there is a shit ton of them." James Gordan, now the squadron leader and CAG of the _Prophesy _after his promotion thanks to the Covenant lazing his predecessor.

He watched as his latest kill, another one of those small dart Colonial fighters was simply vaporized by the oversized and comparatively overpowered AGSM missile designed to take out shielded Covenant Seraphs or heavy United Rebel Front fighters.

That made kill number six already.

"Knife Five took damage to its tail and coolant to its reactor." His co-pilot manning the radar and subsystems called out as the big interceptor shook subtly as he accelerated back into the fight.

Only giving an affirmative he stole a glance at the progress of the Colonial advance.

Not good.

Despite the kills they still were closing in on the _Prophesy_, and there were still at least three hundred contacts advancing on the UNSC Cruiser, which was currently trading fire with the second smaller group of enemy ships and making a push to the asteroid field, but not after taking out one of their light cruiser analogs.

"All Longswords form into standard formations, get on your wingman. Do not let these bastards any closer to the _Prophesy." _

The other pilots gave the affirmative as he again hit his boosters, crushing him into his seat as the internal dampeners struggled to mitigate the effects.

The Colonial Vipers had yet to reform their formation before the UNSC Interceptors were on them.

The smaller fighters were hard to hit but Gordan knew just how much the size of his ship betrayed its actual capabilities as he easily slid into position behind one of the dart like fighters and narrowed the range down to a scant mile before setting his twin 60's on the stubby little craft and the radar assisted targeting locked on.

The Colonial must have known he was being targeted as he or she attempted to jet "up" and out of the killzone.

Gordan however merely pressed the button that de-activated the auto correct thrusters located on the top of his stick next to the firing button, which allowed for simple atmospheric like maneuvers by firing the ship's correctional thrusters in synch with the directed main engines with minimal effort, allowing him to take full advantage of the zero gravity while Gordan pitched his nose up, following the fighter and pulling the trigger.

The very brief burst from his railcannons absolutely tore the Colonial craft apart as he swung around looking for targets, quickly finding one among the lines of tracers, small explosions of dying single ships and lights or engine boosters.

The Colonial fighter had actually found him first as he was forced to dodge a stream of orange tracers as a white dart streaked in front of him by scant yards to spare.

But not before the sounds of shells hitting his fighter.

"Minimal damage, it was only a glancing blow but they have managed to severely damage Knife Three's interceptor." His copilot squawked as the small image of a heavily damaged Longsword missing most of its right wing limping back to the cruiser under escort and trailing debris came up on his HUD and pilot's interface.

Cursing his wingman, Knife Seven, flipped his fighter over and gave chase, weaving past another attacking Colonial as Gordan switched his weapon selector to another AGSM as the missile and radar locked on to one of the Colonial gunships.

He felt little remorse killing another human as his missile eviscerated the small gunship.

_**CIC Battlestar Pegasus**_

Cain watched with growing ire as her wings of Vipers and Raptors were picked off one by one.

"What the Frak? There are only twenty something of them!" she roared as another Viper icon winked off of DRADIS.

"Ma'am they are reporting that the enemy fighters have incredible speed and especially maneuverable given their large size. They also have good armor protection as it takes substained fire to bring one down." Fisk responded.

"How many have we taken out?"

"Only three and heavily damaged a fourth, however we still seem to be overwhelming them." He added.

Cain slammed her fist on the tactical map.

"How many have we lost?"

Fisk seemed to gulp before answering.

"Ninety six…make that ninety seven, Vipers and Raptors. Ma'am"

"Order all Raptors to launch everything once they get in range. Status of the enemy ship?"

"The UNSC warship is heading into the asteroid belt, and at its current rate in only ten minutes. Our fleet will have a three minute interval to attack."

What is the status of the _Perseus _and her taskforce?" the admiral asked.

This time one of the other officer answered.

"The _Perseus_ reports that it is dead in the water and has taken heavy casualties. Her captain is in critical condition and all weapons are knocked out and the hull is buckling with dozens of large hull breaches. The rest of the battlegroup incurred damage with two escortstars knocked out of action and moderate damage to the other gunstars and cruiser. The hits taken by the UNSC ship appeared to be only light to minimal in damage."

"Get all batteries online and a launch order for Nukes. "

"As many as we can fire." She added.

_**Colonial Viper**_

"Come on you fraker!" Apollo roared as he flipped his Viper over and away from a stream of very deadly fire from a streaking Earth fighter, its large black wedge shaped hidden save for its flaring drives against the inky blackness of space.

Cain's orders to simply press the attack at all costs had cost them even more pilots, but the tide of smaller more numerous Vipers had cost the Earthers two more fighters and damage to several more.

The sudden turn left the Earther right in his sights and just inside his range of his guns.

He held down the firing stud as the 25mm KEWs sent a hail of tracers at the much larger enemy fighter.

The fighter tried to roll out of the way, and even now Apollo was amazed at how such a large fighter could still be so maneuverable, its thrust to weight ratio had to be enormous just given their speed.

However it was not enough.

Apollo had found almost to his peril that it usually took more than a simple burst to down or damage these UNSC fighters. However his aim could not have been more true.

The tracers walked up the wing root of the starboard wing and into the cockpit section, tearing deep rents and destruction as they went before one last round went straight through the forward windscreen.

The fighter suddenly stopped its controlled heading and went on a lazy and unguided course, its crew clearly shredded.

"Hell yeah!" Apollo roared as he pumped his fist in victory before taking in the battle around him.

They were finally pushing the enemy back as their remaining 16 or so contacts were high tailing it back to their ship, now some thousand clicks away and visible to the naked eye.

However taking one look at the DRADIS he knew that that had come at quite a severe cost. Around him floated the debris that had once been up to a hundred and twenty Vipers and thirty Raptors that had been all but obliterated by the Earthers overpowering weapons.

Now the remaining Raptors had managed to attain weapons lock for their nukes, as the ghostly contrails of nearly two hundred fighter sized tactical nuclear missiles flew from their launch rails and towards the UNSC ship.

The Raptors all immediately turned back to the direction of forces that were not out to kill them as the voice of Boomer filled the radio.

She had managed to get her Raptor through this too.

"_Alright Lee lets get out of here. The fleet is about to engage, if there is anything left after that."_

"Roger, status on the rest of the squadron?"

"_We lost four."_

Lee cursed as he flipped his fighter over to head back to Galactica and re arm and re fuel.

Suddenly his radio filled with the usual voice of Kara, "_Apollo, you still with us?"_

He grinned as he keyed his com, glad to see she had made it.

"Yeah Starbuck I am here. Did you get one?"

"_I managed to damage one that had to pull out so….technically? These frakkers were insane_." She added.

Lee nodded, this UNSC was clearly more advanced than the Colonies and their fighters were better than any Viper he piloted.

Getting back into formation he watched as the nukes neared their target.

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Fighter squadrons down to half strength, count one hundred and fifty single ship enemy kills. Enemy ordinance incoming, reads as nuclear missiles. Three hundred and nintey Seven. Estimate Low Yields. Targeting." The AI called out with little emotion, contrasting the wails of the Klaxon and the shouts between officers at their stations.

Riley watched on the video feeds as one by one the small nuclear missiles exploded as their drives were melted by countless joules of power.

Ten, twenty and then thirty of the missiles were downed but the others kept coming unabated as the Longswords knocked out ten more before the interceptors frantically pulled away to give room for the CIWS to engage.

With a forth generation smart AI the targeting, already highly accurate with dumb AI s or basic computer guidance, it was almost art.

If art were to have consisted of a Magnetically accelerated 50mm tungsten dart impacting a nuclear missile with enough kinetic energy alone to turn it to dust.

The missiles were felled one after the other in droves.

Yet despite the hellacious attempt to destroy them all there were simply too many coming in too fast and they had been launched within 6,000 kilometers from Gunships moving much faster than a Battlestar or Siegestar.

Five 5 Megaton suns flashed into existence along the ventral side of the cruiser amidships.

Riley was thrown to the floor as the lights went out for a moment before coming back on and for a second felt the sensation of weightlessness as the artificial gravity gave out before coming back on, causing him to slam back to the deck a second time.

Alarm bells rang throughout the ship as FitzGibbons gave the status out loud.

"Hull Breach in multiple sectors! Sealing… armor holding and power stabilized. Firing counter thrusters to regain control."

The ship shuddered as her engines pulsed, correcting the slow tumble that the cruiser had been thrown onto by the nukes as Riley got to his feet after helping a fellow officer up.

"Casualties?" Riley growled.

"Light. Still thirty crew dead and another fifty injured."

Riley cursed as the rest of the crew regained their seats and put their crash webbing on.

"Take us into that Asteroid belt and recover our fighters. What is the status of our Slipspace Drive?"

The AI nodded, " Our crews managed to patch it together but we still need a few more hours repair the damage."

Before he could respond the ship shuddered again, nearly taking away his balance as he grasped a nearby console for support.

"Status?"

"Incoming fire from enemy flagship and battleships, damage to starboard side, armor in sections F , G and C down to 50 percent effectiveness and three hull breaches in areas E and H due to hits to previously damaged areas. Also CIWIS mounts 30 and 42 are gone and Archer Pod Twelve has suffered heavy damage."

"Going Evasive!" Ashcroft called out as he sent the huge bulk of ship "down" relative to the Colonials, the main group and flagship now only 30,000 kilometers distant and avoiding most of the next salvo of railgun fire as those that still hit flattened themselves against the two meter thick titanium A composite battle plates.

Riley had to ensure they made it to the relative safety of the asteroid belt.

Doing so would allow him to not only have about the only place a ship could find cover behind in space with city sized chunks of rocks and debris, but would also allow him to engage the Colonials on his own terms and by time for his slipspace drive to be fixed.

"Radiological Alarm! One hundred plus missiles inbound! Size estimates larger yield." Lietenant Elroy called out frantically as the _Prophesy_ raced towards the safety of the asteroids.

"Time to impact?" Riley asked as he looked as the missiles raced through space on the screen before him.

"Estimate three minutes…." FitzGibbons paused mid sentenced before the AI's code streamed again with yet more impossibly complex algorithms.

"Heavy enemy salvo incoming, they appear to be using bracket fire to decrease our ability to evade."

Riley looked at the dim fast moving radar profiles of hundreds of shells ranging in size from the lighter slugs from the escorts to the heavy slugs from the cruisers and battlestars.

He clenched his fist, this Admiral Cain was smarter than he gave her credit for, and he had also committed a cardinal sin.

He underestimated his opponent.

His mind leapt into action as he came up with an answer.

"Target those nukes with our Archer missiles, Pods A through F, they are slow enough and that a large explosion in a general area will do. And full evasive , prepare emergency thrusters!" he ordered.

The affirmatives had just finished by the time FitzGibbons managed to attain near locks for the large anti ship missiles.

Small dull popping sounds in some sections of the ship could be heard as an equal number of the large anti ship missiles shot towards an individual missile and rocketed away.

The _Prophesy _shot upwards with its engines burning bright as Ashcroft at the Helm activated the emergency chemical thrusters that would crudely but effectively blast the cruiser onto a new heading, the Colonial slugs streaking closer and into a small but defined general area where the ship could have only dodged a quarter at anyone time.

Riley gripped his seat.

Even with the _Prophesy's_ thick armor that was meant to resist weapons far more powerful and advanced than these the shear numbers would potentially cripple hit ship.

"Impact in three…. Two…."

"Boosters, now!"

Even though the ship produced its own gravity the sudden and radical acceleration shook the ship with a thud as the gravity very slightly increased for a second as the bulk of 1,190 meter long cruiser evaded like an interceptor.

The Colonial shells shot through the area of space where the Marathon class cruiser had been, some only narrowly missing by mere meters.

However several shots still managed to hit the dorsal side of the cruiser, most being stopped dead by the thick armored hull.

However several heavy slugs did manage to make lucky hits to damaged armor sections and caused yet more damage to the already scarred hull.

Regaining focus Riley looked to see that most of the Nuclear missiles had been destroyed, with the several lucky ones quickly being dispensed of by the lasers and CIWS.

With the asteroid field looming in front of them Riley wanted to sit in his chair and heave a sigh of relief, but he was not even close to being out of the woods yet.

The Colonials could just follow him in there and box him in, not to mention involve the rest of the fleet they had in the system.

Time to thin the heard.

"Elroy status on MACs?"

The officer looked up from his station only briefly to answer.

"Both MAC guns are ready to fire, both are chambered. What is our target?"

"Nearest Colonial Capitol."

Elroy ran through his data as the image of the second of the monstrous Colonial "Battlestars" came on the screen with targeting data that was clear as daylight.

The ECM they were throwing up was easily cut through.

"Target acquired, range 38,000 kilometers."

"Flip us around and fire at will." He ordered as the crew complied, the ship's main drives cut and the ship rolled to bring its twin spinally mounted Class Two Heavy MACs to target the enemy ship.

"Firing." Elroy called out with a hint of emotion.

The ship shook twice as two streaks of orange bolts, each one a 200 ton tungsten slug with a blunt nose, cut through space at almost 12,000 kilometers a second.

The _Mercury _class Battlestar _Heron _had no chance.

The first slug hit square on the bow, simply punching through the ship and obliterating the bow in a gigantic transfer of energy in the order of several hundred megatons. The second slug hit dead amidships, going into the already rippling hull and out of the other side, nearly ripping the ship in half as the remains of the once mighty warship tore itself apart.

_**Battlestar Pegasus**_

"Frak!" Cain slammed her hand down on the tactical table a Beltzan and Fisk looked on while the whole CIC cringed.

The Admiral and her crew could only watch helplessly as the _Heron_ a Mercury Class Battlestar no less, was obliterated while the shattered remnants of its hull tore itself apart with explosive decompressions and actual explosions coursing through it.

Not one person made it off that ship.

Cain gripped her head in thought.

There was no way they could fight this UNSC at range. Their weaponry was simply too powerful and _far_ outranged the capabilities of her weaponry.

But she was not about to let the frakers get away, which if they went into the Asteroids they could spread her forces out and take them apart one by one.

However she saw the double edged sword.

Her fleet and the entire 9th Fleet coming in to reinforce her could simply box them in and blockade the portion of the belt and then swarm the enemy, which thanks to the asteroids would limit the range of their weapons and sensors, taking away their advantage in that area.

However she knew that the real reason these Earthers were running for the Asteroids was to buy their time, most likely to make a jump back to their territory, and most likely to come back, with far more ships.

She couldn't allow that to happen.

She still had one trick up her sleeve, but to do it would potentially cause her and the _Pegasus_ to end up inside of a ball of rock.

"Spin up the FTL. And plot a jump as close as you can get me to that damned ship." she ordered as the incredulous looks of Beltzan and the crew did nothing to amuse her.

"Now!"

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"ETA to Asteroid field, one hundred and eighty seconds." FitzGibbons spoke as Riley collapsed into his captain's chair, thinking about how he would have to tell the Admiralty of the second not so friendly first contact they had made.

And he was certainly not looking forward to all the hearings he would have to attend.

The Cruiser began to maneuver into the asteroid field as a huge asteroid the size of Manhattan floated ten kilometers off of her starboard side.

"Ashcroft hand over helm control to FitzGibbons, this is a dense asteroid field and though I trust your abilities I want to be safe."

The man turned from his seat at the fore of the bridge to protest but a stern look from the captain changed his mind.

"Aye aye sir." He replied as the AI took over, immediately rolling the ship around a smaller asteroid and simply blasting apart one threatening the cruiser's path with a slug from one of the _Prophesy's_ railguns as smaller car sized rocks pulverized themselves against the hull.

Suddenly FitzGibbon's Avatar made the sudden peculirar face of confusion before, with a hint of alarm he "turned" to Riley.

"Unidentified distortion of realspace 100 miles off of our bow! Directly in front of us!"

Klaxons began to wail again as Riley shot to his feet.

"Evasive action! Take us alongside it as best you can!" he bellowed as the AI tried to find enough room to fit a 1,190 meter long Marathon Cruiser in an asteroid field.

Suddenly through the forward view port and on the outside cameras, a brief and bright flash of light flashed to existence before a huge contact more or less appeared, to Riley's utter amazement.

The Colonial Flagship.

"….How the hell?" He struggled to utter the words before the entire starboard side of the enemy ship exploded with weapons fire.

Rushing to brace himself he all but screamed.

"Return Fire!"

_**Battlestar Pegasus**_

Helena Cain grabbed for the nearest thing she could find to catch herself as she was almost thrown forward as the ship violently reappeared back into existence.

"Where are we!" She asked frantically as the CIC crew pulled themselves back to their stations as fast as humanly possible.

Intra system jumps were never accurate or pleasant.

"We are in the asteroid belt, good lords we didn't materialize inside anything…." The DRADIS operator's eyes widened as the man stared at his screen.

"Contact! Enemy Cruiser _DIRECTLY_ off of our port side, 100 miles distant!" he shouted.

_Guess intra system jumps were better than she thought_

Cain's heart almost fluttered as she pounded her fist on the center consol.

"Hit it with everything!"

Every weapon the _Pegasus_ could bring to bear fired into the side of the UNSC ship as soon as they could be loaded and aimed.

The ship shook with the violence of combat.

"We have hits all along the side of the UNSC ship! Visible damage!" Beltzan cried as the video feed on one of the screens showed a trio of rents and breaches explode from the Battlestars main guns on the accursed enemy ship, finally managing to breach its absurdly durable armor.

"Keep it up!" Cain cried as the DRADIS showed more contacts appear from the Earth ship.

"Enemy return fire!..." Fisk barely managed to shout before he and everyone were nearly thrown to the deck as the ship shook like it was tearing itself apart.

"Hull breached in multiple sectors! We lost three of our main turrets on our dorsal side and the top section of the starboard flightpod is heavily damaged!"

Cain got to her feet as several consoles overloaded and sent a shower of sparks in the air while the image of the different sections of her ship were suddenly covered in red and yellow sections. Both damaged or breached.

The ships remorselessly pounded away at each other.

Shells from _Pegasus's _main guns tore into one of the sections of the UNSC Cruiser hit by Covenant Plasma torpedo, tearing deep into the ship , sucking several unlucky crew into the void while another destroyed one of the ventral Railgun mounts as the UNSC ship rolled to spread its damage to its less battle-damaged starboard side.

A Dozen of Archers covered the hull of the Battlestar in dazzling explosions, burning through armor and gutting the already damaged flightpod.

A pair of Railgun slugs punched through several of the main engines, severing a chunk of one as another exploded outwards while another two hit the nose of the Mercury and opening up a rent in the hull where the water bunkers were held, sending a stream of frozen water into space.

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

"Status!" Riley coughed as the fire suppression systems activated to clear the fire from an overloaded console that had showered a poor woman's face with plastic and sparks as the air scrubbers worked frantically to clear the air of the ozone from the several fires that had erupted throughout the ship.

"Damage to the Coils on MAC number Two. Railgun turret four is gone and another is offline. Archer Pods 13, 43 through 57 and 120 are destroyed or offline. Minor damage to subsystems. Damage control teams have contain the fires and are working to seal remaining breaches. We have 80 crewmen dead or unaccounted for and 30 more injured." FitzGibbons read off as the battle still continued.

"Enemy ship is attempting to come around to engage engines." Lieutenant Ashcroft called out as yet more enemy weapons fire hit the cruiser, though this time noticeably slackened.

"Finish off their engines and primary weapons, spread of Archers." Riley cooley ordered.

Six more Archer anti ship missiles streaked from their tubes and almost immediately hit the enemy ship despite the flak barrage put up by the Colonial Battlestar quickly followed up by another two slugs of magnetically accelerated shells from one of the _Prophesy's_ remaining railguns.

Metaphorical fire and thunder covered the ship once called "_The Beast", _tearing through armor and blowing whole sections apart as two one ton comets sliced through the engine block and aft section.

The Mercury Class Battlestar could not take anymore as her engines flickered and died as explosions and atmosphere race from across the ship, its starboard side now blackened and tattered.

With little control the 1800 meter ship began a lazy roll that lasted only about thirty seconds before it slowly crashed into the side of the large asteroid, its collision softened by the slow speed it had been traveling and the stationary rock it had crashed into on its port side, causing relatively little damage for the incident.

It was almost a controlled landing or docking.

The ship still had life in it at apparent emergency thrusters fired along its side in an attempt to slow it down, further softening the impact just before it collided.

"Target is inactive." Elroy called out as the _Prophesy _swung around.

Riley looked at the image of the enemy flagship on the main viewer.

"Readings show that most of the interior not hit by our weapons fire is still intact and sealed, thanks to most of our attacks being with our missiles the rest of the ship not hit by us should be relatively intact, plus the impact could not have exceeded one Gee, so any crew not already dead should still be active, and given its actions to slow down its collision the bridge crew should still be active." The AI spoke.

Riley saw the huge potential in intel that could be gained, plus they could answer Spartan 051's question of wanting to see if they knew where Earth was.

"How long until we can jump?"

"One hour."

"Get me Spartan Fifty One and the ODST's."


	6. Chapter 6

IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!

Hey everyone, I decided to make a few retcons after doing some research and suggestions by Turrasta

- UNSC Archer Missiles have a yield of approximately 2 megaton per missile

- My next edit or retcon would have to be one of the larger changes I could make to the Halo Universe, the MAC gun itself. I have always favored the mid range calcs for UNSC MAC guns in the whole lunacy of Spacbattles forums, as they make the most sense, however having worked them Out I decided to come out with my official take on MAC guns . MAC guns in my take fire smaller sized rounds at velocities that are comparable to realistic calculations. UNSC Frigate sized MACs on Frigates and Destroyers fire a 100 ton slug at 10,000 kilometers a second to deliver a force of 2,350 megatons per shot, still a shit ton. Heavy MACs like on cruisers and the Prophesy fire a 200 ton slug at a little bit over 10,000 kilometers a second with a force of around 4,000 megatons, quite a shit ton.

- UNSC Rail gun slugs now are one ton in size and weight and when fired travel at around 7,000 kilometers a second.

_**UNSC Pelican Mike 74**_

"Is there even anything left for us to board ?" one of the Thirteen assembled ODSTs in the cramped interior of the dropship's troopbay asked aloud while watching a small feed from the Pelicans outside cameras on his HUD.

Captain James Wallace stole a quick glance as he performed final checks on his MA6.

Winking at one of the many icons on the edges of his field of vision the image of the trashed and twisted wreck that was the enemy "Battlestar" filled his vision.

Doing a quick overview of the ship he frowned, there were more than likely only two places for them to land and infiltrate the ship that were not either ripped open to vacuum or crushed by the crash landing on the city sized asteroid.

And judging from the quick scans there would be a problem in just getting in, even with large parts of the ship now ripped open, the only truly good location to board was the very inviting and intact hangar bay on the ship's starboard side.

The problem was that for the ten ODSTs and the other ten ODSTs in the second Pelican on their 12 o'clock with that mysterious "Spartan" accompanying them, was that those Hangar bays appeared to be sealed tight, they would have to find a way in by other means.

Wallace turned to his first Seargant, Vaz.

"We may need to blow a hole in those hanger bay doors, get on the horn with Spartan Fifty One and tell him we need to find out how to get our Dropships in those hangar bays." He finished as the Pelican dipped to avoid a tumbling car sized rock.

The ODST sitting next to him turned and tapped him on the shoulder, "Um..Sir."

Raising an eyebrow Wallace turned to Vaz who depolarized his faceplate to reveal a smirk on the Russian man's face.

Bemused Wallace cocked his head, "What is it?"

"Spartan 51 says he is going to infiltrate the ship and open the bay doors for us."

He noticed on the small camera feed he was watching that a green armored figure floated by.

_**Spartan Class Two Commando Fifty One**_

Kurt pushed himself off of the hull of the dropship, as his enhanced muscles flexed and propelled him from the orbiting craft towards the wreck of the Colonial warship.

It had to be a perfectly calculated jump, too fast or he would overshoot his target and drift helplessly amongst the asteroid belt.

"I must say Kurt that your armor system is most impressive, I can only guess the amount of research and new technologies that went into this system." FitzGibbons spoke.

Kurt sighed as he ran a quick diagnostic on his suit's built in booster system, the shipborne AI's copy was just like its greater self.

The armored systems gave a small affirmative beep as with control from his neural interface he keyed the small but potent boosters somehow squeezed into his MJOLNIR armored assault suit.

Firing a large burn the boosters quickly hit the speed at which he wanted to approach and as soon as he activated them shut them off.

He ran a quick scan of the immobilized Colonial warship as the AI linked up with scans and a diagram of the enemy warship.

"Sensors from the _Prophesy_ show that the enemy Battlestar hit the asteroid at a low velocity and even managed to decelerate enough with emergency thrusters that the impact was only enough to clip its wings. On top of that the ship "landed" on its belly so aside from the port side of the ship and most of the ship should still be relatively intact."

"Any active weapons systems?" Kurt asked as he flipped himself over and gave a small burn to stop his possibly endless tumble and another to slow himself down so he wouldn't crush himself against the hull of the ship.

"No active Radar or sensors, and most of their weapons were destroyed, none that I can see." The AI answered non chalantly.

"_Like you have much to worry about if a point defense gun fires on me"_ Kurt thought as the grey hull of the Colonial ship filled his vision.

He had aimed for one of the small tubes that these Colonials supposedly launched their small fighters from on the one intact flight pod.

He took a moment to take in the "alien" human ship designs as he couldn't help but whistle at the amount of weapons the ship carried, thankfully all dormant.

This ship would have been a match for anything in the UNSC's arsenal in the early 2400's or pre-Insurrection.

The ship came up as he braced his augmented superhuman body and locked his armor before giving one last burn to slow himself down as he impacted the metal hull with a clang.

He immediately magnetized his boots before he could bounce off as he rolled and came to a stop with his feet sticking to the hull.

His training in Zero gravity combat and hostile boarding actions had been just as extensive as any of the other Spartan training, but despite his years of training and several hostile boarding actions he still hated combat in the unforgiving environment of space.

He de-magnetized his boots and crawled his way into the nearest launch tube that he made out, marveling at how small the ship that went in it.

He made his way down the thirty meter metal tube with his MA6 drawn and helmet mounted flashlights illuminating the darkness beyond, though he hardly needed it with the suits thermal, night and infared vision systems on top of his near night vision capable eyes.

Finding a the airlock to the launch bay he looked to his left to see a small control room which operated the launch tube.

FitzGibbons, looking at the world beyond through his helmet's helmet cam commented on the situation. "I don't seem to be able to find a way in to the second airlock without you…"

The AI was cut off as Kurt simply walked to the glass that separated the launch control room from the tube and with a vicious swing from his left hand put his augmented armored fist through the reinforced glass and pulled it out as a gale of silent atmosphere escaped the basketball sized hole.

"That work?" Kurt asked with a grin as he pulled the rest of the window off and jumped into the now very open control room.

Looking around he found what he was looking for, at least a semblance of it.

It appeared that the entire launch tube could be closed as he hit the button that FitzGibbon's translation software identified as an emergency seal in case of a nuclear attack.

Hitting the button the light at the end of the tunnel slowly disappeared as he opened entered the hangar bay filled with scattered unfamiliar equipment and what had been a neat row of the small Dart like Colonial fighters.

What Kurt did notice was the distinct lack of bodies, which meant that more of the crew had survived than he thought.

With his rifle sweeping for possible hostiles he made his way to what FitzGibbons identified as a route to a control for the main Hangar bay doors.

_**Colonial Defense Force**_

_**Battlestar Pegasus**_

Cain's eyes shot open as she awoke to the sight of Colonel Fisk and a medical aid standing over her and checking her vitals.

Her head spun for a moment as her memory came back to her in a flood.

The _Pegasus_ had been defeated and left to drift by the Earth cruiser and would have been crushed against the face of an asteroid if the helmsman hadn't managed to fire the remainng emergency thrusters and somehow maneuver the ship to crash into the floating rock on its "belly".

The CIC was dimly lit with emergency lights and half the consols were dark as she pulled herself up, brushing off the aid as she rubbed her head and felt the nice bump from going headfirst into the main control table.

"Ma'am I need to get you to the Sick Bay you have a concussion…" the orderly tried to speak before Cain cut the woman off.

"I am fine there are men and women worse off than me. What is our status Fisk?"

"Beltzan is down in Engineering helping them keep whats left of the reactors from going up. We basically have lost most of our port side with dozens of large hull breaches and entire sections simply gone. Our engines were blown off , literally almost, and the impact with the asteroid opened up more sections on our belly. We have no DRADIS, any weapons that are left are offline, We are stuck on this rock and our communications are being jammed."

Cain felt the need to sit down as the man continued.

"Also about half of our crew is either dead or missing and presumed so." He finished with emotion ending his sentence.

Cain clenched her fist.

"Do we have anyway of establishing contact with the Fleet? In the event that I am incapacitated Adama was the man I put under me, even though his ship is a rust bucket he has the most experience outside of a flag officer before the Fourth Fleet should arrive." She asked as several officers and Marines helped carry wounded crew down the hall towards the surely swamped sick bay.

"No we don't but we can…."

Cain cut the Colonel off as she grabbed a the thankfully still active shipwide com headset.

"They are going to board us, we need all available crew that can fight to…"

This time the Admiral was cut off by one of the remaining CIC officers.

"Maam we have one of the launch tubes reporting that its launch control was compromised and had the emergency shutters closed. We evacuated the flight pod in order to.."

Cain spun around.

"Get me all available Marines to the starboard flight pod!"

_**Spartan Fifty One**_

Kurt had made his way up the still functional lift and into what had to be the main hangar bay as he stepped out into the large bay that extended several hundred meters.

"The secondary controls for the main doors are located in the Air group command center which is in the center of the flight pod." The AI spoke as his HUD showed a three dimensional map of the interior layout of the flight pod based off of sonar readings from his suits sensors with the target highlighted in red.

"Approximately 300 meters down."

Kurt nodded and began to jog (at a steady 20 mph) down past a row of squat colonial gunships before large hatch 20 meters in front of him began to open up just as FitzGibbons cut in through his head.

"Ive hacked enemy radio frequencies and they are aware of our presence."

Kurt had now where to seek immediate cover except for a short vehicle for towing craft into position that wouldn't really provide cover for his large form.

The hatch immediately opened as Kurt snapped his rifle up in a flash as the integrated targeting system's targeting reticule came up on his Heads Up Display while the MA6's holographic Red Dot sight flashed to existence as he aimed the down the weapon's sights.

Kurt then got his first look at the enemy as his suit's HUD outlined each figure in hostile red.

Standing with weapons at the ready were some fifteen men in black lighter ballistic vests with older style helmets and holding traditional firearms of an assault rifle type.

The men stopped and stared for a full second at the sight of a seven foot green armored giant with an MA6 pointed square at them.

Kurts mind paused for less than a second as his mind mulled over the fact that he would be killing fellow humans, but quickly reminded himself he had been trained to kill Rebels and Innies as well as his duty to defend the UNSC and UEG.

He pulled the trigger.

The MA6's large battery located in the butt of the weapon replacing where the ammunition was previously held on the older MA5 series, sent three surges of energy into the first round of each of the three barrels, igniting the complex and potent propellant and turning it into a short lived but violent directed jet of plasma and gas that sent each tungsten ceramic 7mm round screaming out of the barrels at a hypersonic 1700 meters per second.

The first burst caught the squad leader center of mass, passed through the Colonial issue Ballistic vest as if it were standard clothing material and out the other side while each of the round's sheer force transferred into the man's torso ripping most of his chest cavity and torso open in a violent spray of gore.

Kurt cut down two more of the Colonials before they reacted, diving for the nearest available cover and returning hastily aimed fire as Kurt spun out of the line of fire in a green blur or superhuman speed as bullets cut through the space he had previously occupied.

He did not like facing odds like this, and for some reason even though he had fought 8ft tall screaming split lips with his hands and won, there was always something he learned about humans that made them more dangerous.

The Colonials by this point had a somewhat organized firing line having taken refuge behind several of the assembled fighters and equipment, pouring a hail of gunfire that caught him in the chest and side of his helmet as he cut down another soldier with a bullet through his skull.

The rounds merely sparked off of his MJOLNIRs outer armor shell of refined Titanium A nearly an inch thick in some places while the two that hit in the gaps bounced off of the nanotube shell coated with flexible titanium weave that was nearly as strong as diamonds as they instantly hardened to absorb the impact.

His motion tracker gave a small warning as two red contacts tried to flank him as he managed to take a cover behind a nearby support truss as bullets continued to chew away at the air all around him.

Without a moments hesitation Spartan Fifty One leapt out of cover and fired a long burst from the hip, still aimed thanks to the integrated HUD, aimed at the squat equipment vehicle a man was firing from behind its cover, and simply tore through the man's cover and cut him apart as he jumped through the air towards the enemy trying to flank him.

With a third of his opponents down Kurt spun over the parked Raptor to find two Colonials trying to aim at the Spartan Two Commando as he twisted while still in flight to bring his weapon to bare.

Kurt's senses , already five times as fast as the fittest human normally abruptly began to process information at a hyper accelerated rate.

His perception of time began to slow as he twisted to avoid the seemingly slow moving burst of gunfire as his vision actually saw and tracked the bullets and their vapor trails.

He pulled the trigger, cutting the first man in half as he flipped and landed right next to the second.

The man's eyes were wild with fear and adrenaline as he stared down his reflection on Kurt's visor while the Spartan merely delivered a kick straight to the man's chest, crushing it and killing him instantly as his limp body flew ten meters down the flight deck and impacted a parked Viper's cockpit as the supersoldier ejected the spent ammo strip of his MA6 and slipped in a new 36 round strip in its place.

The remaining eight Colonials began to try and make their way around him and threw several fragmentation grenades, which Kurt either dodged away from or shrugged off the shrapnel that bounced off of his armor as he laid down suppressing fire with a long roaring burst of flame from his rifle that tore through most of the enemy's cover and hit another colonial as another enemy contact winked off his HUD.

Kurt took his opportunity to activate his underbarrel M90 CAWS shotgun as he covered the 30 meter space in a flash and jumped among them.

The nearest Colonial received an 8 gauge flechette shell that nearly cut the man in two as he twisted and backhanded the man behind him, snapping the soldier's neck with a wet snap.

Bullets merely sparked and bounced off of the Mjolnir armor as Kurt didn't bother to attempt to avoid any of the fire as FitzGibbons identified the rounds likely hood of penetrating the suit as "negligible".

A long burst of flame leapt from the barrels of the MA6 as the last of the opposition was brutally cut down, the roar luckily suppressing the short lived dying screams and shouts of the men as they were torn apart and gunned down.

"No more contacts." The AI spoke as Kurt nodded while trying to ignore the remains around him now pooling in blood.

He made his way to the flight control room.

_**UNSC Prophesy **_

"Spartan Five One is confirming that he has control of flight pod and hangar bay doors, and the ODSTs have boarded, they are moving out of the flight pod, so far running into little resistance." Lieutenant Elroy announced as Captain Riley stood over the holographic representation of the Battlestar now dominating the main display table.

Riley nodded, taking a quiet note of the asteroids floating around the cruiser.

"Alright, tell them that they are to continue on their mission and take the bridge, any high value targets that they can take are targets of opportunity." He continued as the cruiser sat just off of the wreck of the colonial warship.

"What is the progress of our repairs?" Riley asked as he rubbed his temples in a vain attempt to fight the oncoming headache.

"Well aside from even more battle damage to our armor in nearly every section and our combat capacity down thirty percent. Our air wing is at only fifty percent capacity and one of our missile stocks stand at fifty percent. However our slipspace drive is operational." The smart AI monotone as if more interested with other things.

Riley couldn't help but notice.

"Fitz, what has your copy with Spartan Fifty One discovered?"

The AI's avatar suddenly became animated as it replied.

"Well, I can say that their computer systems might as well be from the 21st century and their firewalls are just as bad almost, however it appears that although there is standard networking, the main computers and navigational systems seem to separate and located on the bridge, or CIC of the Battlestar. What has caught my interest is that there appears to be a foreign virus recently embedded throughout the system. It appears to be capable of shutting down most of the ship, however as of now it appears to be dormant, and I easily destroyed it."

"So it could be something these Cylons did? If they managed to imbed a virus in the computer systems of a Colonial Flagship then it is possible that they could have infected much more of their defense."

The AI nodded, "Yes sir it is."

"Sir! Readings from our recon probe and our sensors indicate a large amount of enemy singleships are closing in trough the asteroid belt on multiple vectors." Lieutenant Ashcroft announced from his position at the fore of the bridge.

"Show me."

The image of the Battlestar morphed into an almost perfect representation of the asteroid belt, showing the red icons of enemy singleship squadrons, lots of them.

"We can pin an exact number because of all the clutter , but there are also numerous enemy capitols moving in to cover nearly any possible escape routes, ETA to engagement range, twelve minutes at best."

Riley cursed as he balled his fist.

"Tell Five One and Captain Wallace that they have ten minutes till they have to get the hell out of there. All hands Battlestations!"

_**Colonial Battlestar Galactica **_

"I want all of our Raptors and Vipers to attack from every vector and all ships are to encircle the asteroid field. Do we have any idea on where they are?" Adama asked as the old Colombia Battlestar, now acting as the flagship of what was left of the fleet, flanked by two Valkyre class battlestars, took position some thousand kilometers off of the edge of the asteroid belt.

"Still nothing from _Pegasus_?" Saul asked as the crew carried out the orders and ran in between stations carrying out orders while Adama kept his eyes glued to the DRADID screen that showed the 16 active or remaining ships that hadn't been obliterated or disabled by the Earther Cruiser.

"Nothing. According to her orders I am second in command of the fleet should _Pegasus_ be out of action. And Nagala and _Atlantia_ will be arriving as will the bulk of BSG 75 shortly to take command." Adama replied as if on cue Felix turned to him.

"I have Nagala on the line."

_**Colonial Defense Force**_

_**Mercury Class Battlestar Atlantia**_

Admiral Nagala frowned as he set down the headset.

Three Battlestars destroyed or lost , two of the Mercurys including _Pegasus_. A Siegestar, Cruiser and three Gunstars also lost with another Cruiser so heavily damaged it was going to have to be scuttled, all by one ship.

Adama's plan to attack from all sides with his fighter wings and block them in with his ships was sound, and probably the only way to defeat this threat.

Nagala, one of the senior most ranking members of the Admiralty, grimaced as he thought of the reprecussions of this event.

And he also mentally cursed Cain. She had clearly lost control of her fleet, even if this UNSC ship had AI on board, and started a shooting war.

The DRADIS screen showed the fifty warships of Battlestar Group Seventy Five as they took position to cover the section of the Asteroid belt as wings of Vipers and Raptors launched from the ten Battlestars , four Mercurys, two Columbia MkIIs and three Valkyries , in his fleet as well as from his attatchment of three older style Carriers, fifteen Cruisers and the lone 2,000 meter Warstar Zeus in his fleet that dwarfed most of the ships in his command .

_**Orbital Drop Shock Trooper **_

_**Captain James Wallace**_

"Vaz, Take point and suppress that position while Jacob and Rai move up! Barret, put a smoke grenade down that cross section and everyone switch to thermal!" Wallace shouted as him and the ten ODSTs accompanied by the pushed their way deeper and deeper into the ship.

He took a quick look at his timer on HUD.

Seven minutes till they had to get out of the ship and back to the _Prophesy._

They had now made their way close to the CIC of the ship after having to cut their way through several destroyed or now exposed sections of the ship where the Colonials had decided to put up the majority of their resistance, clearly knowing that that was their target, where what was left of their crew and shipboard soldiers had set up their defense down two long corridors and other side cabins and control stations.

A hail of gunfire erupted from a hastily erected barricade as he and Vaz popped out of their cover and let loose a long burst from their MA6s in return, sending a stream of hypersonic depleted uranium and ceramic at the enemy position in return, catching two of the Colonials out of cover and violently ending their existence as well as tearing apart their cover while a smoke grenade sailed down the corridor and soon detonated.

"Popping smoke!"

Wallace and the others quickly switched their HUDs and vision to Thermal as the now smoke filled passageway was filled with the dull colors of Thermal vision.

Confused shouts from the enemy could be heard as the outlines from their body heat shone clear as daylight.

Wallace and the ODSTs quickly advanced , cutting down any opposition as they came out of the smoke to even more opposition as two bullets from a Colonial Marine behind an overturned heavy steel table struck him in his chest plate, flattening themselves and sparking off of his composite armor as the gel layer beneath absorbed most of the energy.

Wallace put two into the Colonial's chest, splaying open his chest cavity as more enemy contacts were outlined on his Helmet's Heads Up Display and the firefight intensified yet again.

Wallace could feel his heart pounding in his chest as the ODSTs let loose short accurate bursts with most of them cutting down yet another enemy.

Wallace and another ODST ran forward, firing accurately from the hip to a part of the corridor that opened up to what had to be part of the bridge, as he was greeted by a hail of fire as he grunted with the impact of a bullet to his helmet, nearly throwing him off balance as he dove back into cover.

The other man wasn't so lucky as a long burst of gunfire and one of those explosive rounds walked up his hip and chest, throwing him back three meters and locking up his armors strength enhancing servos.

The man's vitals dipped as Vaz and himself popped out of cover fired a long stream of hypersonic projectiles in return that bloodily cut down four more Colonials as Vaz grabbed the injured ODST and dragged him back into cover.

"How is he holding up?" Wallace asked as he rolled across corridor to a more sutable firing position, bullets tearing through the air where he was.

"He has several cracked ribs but the armor held up for the most part." Vaz answered as the wounded ODST grunted in obvious discomfort as he got back to his feet.

"I'm all good sir." The man nodded as Vaz and the other ODSTs nodded.

Quickly checking with his HUD he saw that the other squad of ODSTs coming down from the other corridor that ran parallel to theirs had made the same amount of progress, now ready to assault from the opposite side, made apparent by the remaining Colonials shifting their fire to the other side of the room as Wallace keyed his com, sending a simple affirmative to the other squad leader.

"Execute."

Two flashbang grenades detonated, blinding the twenty plus Colonial soldiers and sailors as the twenty ODSTs swept through the room, easily eliminating their opponents in a flood of accurate unstoppable fire.

Wallace ignored his mind's internal protest as he put a 7mm slug through a woman's skull who, blinded by the flashbangs been wildly firing her sub machine gun before he quickly ended her life.

It was over in less than twenty seconds will Wallace motioned for the shock troopers to stack up on the sealed entrance to the warship's bridge.

"I need a stick of C12 on that door…" he began to order as he noticed that the Spartan was not with the second squad.

_**Combat Information Center**_

_**Battlestar Pegasus**_

"They just wiped us out!" a marine on the other end of the shipwide com yelled as Helena Cain threw the hand set.

The UNSC soldiers were just unstoppable it seemed.

They had only managed to kill or wound one of them it seemed and that had been with the use of several explosive rounds and long burst of gunfire. The black armor they wore was far more durable than Cylon Centurians and that wasn't the half of it.

They cut down both her Marines and personnel that tried to stop them with such skill and speed that it would have made the admiralty envious were it not for the fact that it was Colonial men and women being expertly killed, many of whom were not even able to return fire.

And she didn't even know what to think about the supposed 8ft green robot that had slaughtered three squads of her Marines in the remaining flight pod shortly after they were boarded in under a minute.

Turning to Bletzan and Fisk as she and the remaining officers armed themselves with whatever firearms they could find while four remaining Marines barricaded the door and covered it with four machine guns, she shook her head.

"Wipe all files in the system, everything."

The men nodded somberly as they knew what was coming.

Cain was not about to be taken prisoner alive.

"They are outside the door!" one Marine yelled as everyone tensed up and readied their weapons while several said a quick prayer to the lords.

Suddenly from the front of the CIC one of the air ducts came crashing down as a huge green armored figure hit the deck with a very loud thud.

Cain barely had time to feel her heart stop as she looked at the sight of an 8ft humanoid covered from head to toe in advanced looking green armor with a mirrored gold visor that seemed to stare directly at her, allowing Cain to see her and the crew's stunned faces in the reflection as she noticed the rifle I its grip that she had seen tear her crew apart.

Faster than her eye could track it snapped the weapon up.

Everything became a hectic blur as she felt Beltzan throw her to the ground as the alien sounding deep report of the being's weapon spoke.

Her crew was cut down as the being moved in a green blur, appearing to dodge the hastily aimed shots from her crew as each time its weapon spoke another man or woman died.

One of the Marines that had been covering the entrance to the CIC heaved his Machine gun to his hip and screamed curses that were drowned out by the booming of his weapon as spent shell casings began to litter the floor.

The Admiral watched dumbfounded as the thing merely stood still for a moment as the bullets bounced off the armor with no effect what so ever before the thing's three barreled weapon spat flame and turned most of the Marine's torso into a bloody spray of gore.

In the three seconds it took her to get back to her feet half of the CIC was now dead as she watched Beltzan charge the thing only watch the being, in a move she could hardly track, simply backhand her XO across the face with its armored hand.

Beltzan's neck let loose a sickening wet snap as his head turned at an unnatural angle and his body flew five meters and crashed to the deck lifeless.

The doors to the CIC suddenly exploded in, flinging the steel bulkhead into the wall as the black armored UNSC soldiers stormed into the CIC to find that nearly all of the opposition was dead.

Cain got to her feet holding her pistol to her head.

She could not allow herself to be captured as she pressed the muzzle to her temple under the guns of twenty one enemy soldiers.

"Stand down!" one of the Earth troopers ordered as the man's voice was synthesized by whatever translator they had.

"Go frak yourse…" she began as she thought for one last second about pulling the trigger.

She never finished her thought as the gun shattered in her grip and a single deep crack of a Earth rifles resounded in the CIC.

The armored giant's weapon was smoking as it walked forward, Cain merely staring as the remains of the weapon in her hand.

The thing towered over her as she felt her legs refusing to move and her heart thumbing louder in her chest.

"Admiral Cain." A deep synthesized voice came from the thing before she felt an electrical shock as everything went black and the Admiral collapsed to the deck.

_**Spartan Two Commando Fifty One**_

"Find me a computer access point please." FitzGibbons copy asked as the Colonial admiral crashed to the deck unconscious.

He had been more than surprised to find that this was the Colonial Flagship and that a high ranking officer was still board, a boon for intelligence.

As he went to what was the apparent access point to the colonial main frame on the ship and pulled the copy of the AI from his suit's neural interface Captain Wallace walked up, shaking his head as he looked around and depolarized his visor.

"How the hell did you get in here?"

Kurt chuckled as he inserted the AI into the computer system, thankful for the universal docking system employed for just this possibility.

"Went for a crawl through the air system and maintenance corridors, almost got my fat ass stuck twice."

The ODST shook his head with a grin on his face while two ODSTs picked up the limp Colonial Admiral and made their way back to the awaiting Pelicans in the hangar bay under heavy escort as fast as they could.

"Got it. Yank me, I've got their navigational files, but it seems that most other files were wiped." FitzGibbons announced as Kurt quickly complied.

"Its what we came for, time to dust off."

_**UNSC Prophesy**_

The klaxons wailed as Riley gripped his seat, watching as yet another wave of Colonial singleships were swatted out of the sky by the cruisers 50mm CIWS and the remaining Longswords.

"Another enemy wave incoming from around the side of the large asteroid! Attack angle negative 30 degrees!" Lieutenant Elroy yelled as Ashcroft at the helm rolled the ship as yet another missile slammed into the Cruiser.

"Vampire, Vampire, Vampire! Enemy nuclear ordinance in bound, retasking pulse lasers." FitzGibbons shouted while Riley felt his ship threatening to die under him, the amount of attackers the Colonials were throwing at them overwhelming the defenses.

The nuclear missiles, launched from five Raptors as soon as they rounded the edge of a city sized rock not a thousand kilometers off of the bow, were thankfully fried or melted by the rapidly overheating missile defense lasers as they soon spun to attack another group of targets.

"Pelicans are away! Repeat Pelicans are away!" Lieutenant Awtry shouted, nearly falling out of her seat as the ship shook with yet another impact.

"_This is Mike 74! We are clear, repeat Clear! We have HVT on board, repeat, HVT aboard!"_ the tinny voice of the dropship's pilot yelled through the bridge speakers as the Pelicans pushed their engines past the redline to make the relatively short distance to the Cruiser.

Riley shot up from his seat, "Give those Pelicans all the cover we can!"

Elroy shouted over the cracking of one of the consoles near him as a power surge sent sparks flying.

"All assests are engaged! Another wave of contacts coming in! Range 500 miles!"

Riley's mind quickly despaired for a solution as the angry red contacts came closer to his ship and the Longswords were beginning to merely try to survive.

His mind suddenly clicked as if a light went off.

"Pull our Longswords out and move us to pick up the dropships with them! Target nearest asteroids with our railguns! Lets give them try to fly through this!"

Elroy and the crew gave a look of confusion before agreeing.

"Railguns locked. Longswords are pulling out and Pelcans are nearly on board."

"Target singleships with our Archers! Fire!" he roared, gripping the nearest handgrip he could find in a mix of excitement and anticipation as the dropships crashed to the deck followed shortly by the larger interceptors.

The dull popping sounds of Archer missiles racing from their tubes could be heard as they cut through the distance and tore more wildly maneuvering Colonial craft apart in a fantastic display of overkill while the Vipers that were able to dodge the large anti ship missiles were forced to pull out or were shredded by 50mm darts of tungsten.

The remaining rail guns fired, sending vibrations through the cruiser as one ton slugs cracked balls of rock into hundreds of pieces and turned them into dangerous flying shrapnel that Viper pilots wildly avoided, breaking missile locks and making several more enemy contacts on the _Prophesy's_ radar disappear with unfortunate Viper pilots not fast enough in avoiding collisions.

"All craft are back aboard. We have recovered the Pelicans and our Longswords," Elroy announced as without orders Ashcroft poured power to the Marathon Cruisers fusion Ion drives as the ship shot forward, rolling past asteroid and rock as more Colonial fighters swarmed the ship.

"CIWS is beginning to overheat! Ammunition at 30 percent and dropping! Pulse lasers forcing cool down!" Elroy shouted with a ting of fear while Riley turned to the AI.

"Plot us a course out of here. Activate the Slipspace drive."

"Yes sir, one minute till slipspace."

The captain balled his fist, "We don't have a minute!"

He was cut off as Ashcroft and the helm called out one again.

"We have enemy heavies moving to cut us off! Enemy light cruiser analogues! Range five thousand and closing. Enemy firing!"

"Our MAC gun is not charged up and our remaining Railguns are tasked with clearing us a path through this mess!" Elroy shouted as the first Colonial shells slammed into the cruiser's weakening armor, nearly throwing the crew off balance.

Riley took one look at the situation and knew that the ship would be disabled by the time it was ready to jump, even if it took the two Colonial warships down with it.

"Screw it," Riley breathed, "FitzGibbons, target them with our last Shiva, vaporize them."

"Captain the detonation of a Shiva may compromise our EMP hardening at this range, and most of our systems are already damaged." The AI warned.

"Do it! All crew brace for impact!" he yelled.

"Affirmative. Launching Shiva."

A single Shiva Nuclear missile launched from its magnetically assisted launch tube at the bow and tore through the short distance between the opposing forces, maneuvering around several smaller asteroids in the process.

The flak and defensive fire the two Berzerker Cruisers put up thankfully failed to hit the fast moving missile as it flew in between the two ships whose distance of separation was only a scant five miles thanks to the close quarters.

A brief star appeared as Captain Riley and the crew were forced to turn away from the fireball that suddenly dominated the viewscreen.

Four hundred megatons of plasma, fire and radiation enveloped the two cruisers, simply vaporizing them as the _Prophesy_ shook as its systems flickered on and off while the wall of EMP slammed into the cruiser and the Colonial fighters harassing it.

Riley watch, silently praying as he watch the screens flicker and shut on and off as the EMP hardening of the ship's systems struggled to keep the ship's systems alive.

"Come on." He breathed as he held his breath.

Time passed agonizingly slow before the systems normalized and the consoles and screens returned to normal.

Riley couldn't help but cheer with the crew as a Viper, its systems melted by the EMP pulse, flew on a ballistic course past the bow of the UNSC ship.

"Slipspace drive is charged. Course plotted." FitzGibbons stated a matter of factly as Riley collapsed in his seat.

"Get us out of here."

As the 1,190 meter battered and beaten Marathon Class Cruiser disappeared and accelerated into the swirling tunnel of the extra dimension of slipspace, a small object, unnoticed and undamaged, detatched itself from the cruiser and opened up a small and short lived slipspace rupture and disappeared.

On a direction towards Covenant space.


	7. Chapter 7

**Authors Note:**** The Colonial Carrier to which I refer to is the Carrier that is featured in Battlestar Galactica Online. **

_**Epsilon Eridani System**_

_**Daedalus Class Corvette **_

_**UNSC Apollo **_

_**One Week Later**_

"Keep a watch on that Pleasure Liner, there are reports on a possible terrorist attack or activity on board according to ONI. Its heading is running close to the orbital works of Csodaszarvas and Turul." Commander Levy ordered tiredly to one of the five officers on the cramped bridge of the small 250 meter warship as she kept a hazel eye on the viewscreen, watching the slow moving bulk of the pleasure liner as it moved among the chocked lines of transport and civilian shipping lanes in between Reach's twin natural satellites and the hulking shipyards, repair and refit stations and replenishment hubs that were constantly at work on dozens of UNSC warships from cruisers, destroyers, frigates and even several hulking skeletal frames of future Everest class battlecruisers and Carriers at any one time.

"Yes ma'am. Bringing us around to shadow the liner, standing off a thousand klicks off of her stern." The helmsman answered as he swung the corvette, the smallest and least powerful of UNSC warship classes still in commission, around and on the edge of designated space not reserved for military use as the small blocky ship accelerated past an unimpressive bulk carrier whose destination was one of the other three populous colonies in the system.

Levy sighed as she sat back in the captain's chair, commission within the Epsilon Erindani system's enormous defense fleet had not been what the young colonist had wanted when she had signed up for the UNSC with the hopes of seeing the galaxy and fighting in the thick of it against terrorists, rebels and now, murderous aliens.

No, she was not on board a huge powerful cruiser with its guns blazing on the front lines, no she was stuck on a mere corvette patrolling the UNSC's fortress system IDing every civilian vessel looking for signs of any possible terrorists activity.

This fact was made painfully aware when Admiral Cole's Fleet victoriously jumped in system from its successful battle against the Covenant in the Alpha Aurague System, delivering a much needed and strategic defeat of the murderous aliens.

The fleet, though clearly battered and missing at least two dozen ships had defeated a larger sized force of Covenant ships in a straight up even fight, and before that had driven them off once previously.

Cole had reportedly destroyed some eighty three Covenant ships in the two phased battle, while losing some sixty three himself, a feat considering the technology gap alone until one took into account that the Covenant fleet for the most part had an estimated tonnage twice that of his and thirty six more ships than him, a stunning victory.

The fifty eight ships that triumphantly returned a week ago were welcomed with as much fanfare and celebrity status as HighCom and the Press could give them.

Their crews and commanders were all now thoroughly enjoying their shore leave while Admiral Cole was transformed into a living legend.

Not only had he delivered a heavy blow to the alien onslaught, but had also caused a very noticeable pullback of Covenant forces near or in UNSC systems, while also helping make strategy for fighting the alien menace coherent as commanders now had a way to intercept Covenant plasma torpedoes; at least haphazardly. This was due to his discovery a year earlier that nuclear detonations and their related pulse waves disrupted the magnetic interface and forces the Covenant used to guide and form their torpedoes, hopefull allowing fewer human vessels to be sliced apart like Swiss cheese.

The already huge Epsilon Erindani defense fleet swelled as his ships entered the monstrous orbital works above Reach and throughout the system for repairs, many of them lengthy, to put them back into the fight.

As she eyed the mile long elegant luxury liner as its Ion drives propelled it onto a new course past one of the many scrap yards where old decreptent vessels and relics like the ancient Nova Class Dreadnaught that floated silently in place off of the ships stern were waiting to be broken down and recycled into new ships, she reminded herself that a similar situation had transpired to that had led to the cruise liner National Holiday to be lost with all hands and her passengers months before the Covenant appeared and rendered the Insurrection moot.

The built in HUD on the forward viewscreen gave a list of the passengers on the manifest, the computers going through their files and seeing if they were on any known watch lists.

"Damn I cant wait to get off of this ship." She mumbled.

The least that she could have been assigned to was a Frigate, but even those were starting to become a position that was not highly valued as the Navy began to focus its efforts on more specialized Destroyers with their heavier armament of two MACs and thicker armor that was far more likely to survive against Covenant warships in combat along with the increase in Capitol ship production.

No , she was on a Corvette, a ship class that wasn't even built anymore and didn't even carry a MAC gun, making them nearly useless against the Covenant in battle with anything more than scouting ships or light frigates, leading to their quickly dying numbers to be pulled back to the colonies for patrol duties.

The _Apollo _herselfwas scheduled to be decommissioned within the year and the ship recycled into parts for newer more capable ships and the name transferred to one of the half finished Everest Class Battlecruisers that were quickly being built above Reach or at Sol itself.

"Defense Command is reporting that all of the passengers are cleared, we are to ….." the comms officer stopped mid sentence as the corvette's class three AI's monotone voice interrupted.

"_Emergency Flash Message from Orbital Command, Remote Sensing Outpost Fermion has detected inbound vessel from vector leading from non UNSC space. Fermion was unable to get a profile shot of the contact. With no scheduled UNSC vessels to jump in system for another two hours and all civilian traffic within allotted shipping and travel lanes, the vessel is to be perceived as hostile_."

Levy and the crew all snapped to as the AI continued, their eyes glued to the holographic displays of the Epsilon Erindani Fleet status.

"_Command is issuing a possible Winter Contingency Alert. All in system UNSC warships are to go to battlestations. Estimated ETA of contact from slipspace in system, 30 seconds_."

"30 Seconds! Christ how the hell did it get this close without us knowing!" the helmsman asked aloud as Levy began shouting orders and demanding updates as the klaxons wailed throughout the small warship.

"Archer Pods A through F are hot, CIWS and Pulse Lasers are all coming online and tracking. Spinal Railguns One, two three and four are all charging." The Weapons officer called aloud as she watched the viewscreen morph into a huge representation of the 230 strong Epsilon Erindani Defense Fleet and the other 30 ships in system that formed the core group of Admiral Cole's Fleet, most being Marathon or Halcyon Cruisers with six 1,000 meter carriers hanging behind _Everest_ disgorging their wings of Longswords as their engines pushed them into a haphazard formation.

Around twenty ships were along the systems outer edge arranged as a first response force to any possible hostile inbound and were also on military maneuvers, training to keep their crews ready to defend Reach at a moment's notice. Another forty were in orbit of the terraformed and colonized worlds of Tribute, Circumstance and Tantalus, supporting the heavily populated worlds already impressive defense grids of attack satellites, older style orbital forts and ten Super Mac ODPs on top of the surface to orbit defenses.

The remaining 170 warships were around or near the orbit or Reach, a huge permanent defensive force already, (though still miniscule compared to that of Earth's) the dozens upon dozens of Destroyers, Frigates, Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, Carriers, and even three Battlecruisers and one of the fleet's four supercarriers, the _Trafalgar,_ were merely a backup to the hundreds of attack satellites, orbital armed anchorages and the gigantic looming forms of thirty one semi mobile SuperMac Mk IV Orbital Defense Platforms armed to the teeth with Railguns, CIWS batteries and missiles along with the most powerful weapons system ever devised, a the new generation Super MAC that fired a 600 ton ferrous slug at terrifying velocities that would obliterate anything it hit.

Ten more near complete SuperMACs were taking shape as the skeletons of twenty more hung in orbit with work constantly making them take their final deadly form.

"_Slipspace Disruption detected! Warning, Slipspace Rupture twenty thousand kilometers off of bow." _ The AI's synthesized voice announced as Levy's heart nearly caught in her throat.

That was nearly point blank range.

"Bring us around to fire our main weapons! All crew brace for impact!" Levy shouted as the ship swung around to bring her primary weapons systems to bare as Civilian craft scattered out of the way desperately while many raced for cover behind the defenses and the cover of the moons.

"We have ODPs _Amago , Senta, Alexander_ and _New Baltimore _targeting their primary weapons and secondary batteries as with dozens of firing solutions from the defense laser and missile grid. Heavy Cruisers _Iowa_, _Starfury,_ and _Iron Duke_ are coming off thirty thousand clicks with the Destroyers _Fury, Stalker, _and _Firestorm_ and three more Frigates as support with thirteen Longswords moving to Intercept." The radar operator announced as the viewscreen zoomed in to show the rippling blue distortion of a slipspace rupture in realspace.

Levy gripped her seat in excitement and fear.

She would finally be in combat, however her more logical part of her brain immediately reminded her how the location of Reach itself was possibly compromised as she thought of the immediate danger the three billion people on the planet and the other billion and a half throughout the Epsilon Eridani's other colonies were in danger of being slaughtered by the Covenant.

"Ship emerging! We have a contact!" WeapOps almost shouted.

Her pulse pounding like an automatic weapon, she stood from her seat.

"Identify! Hold Fire until identification!"

She couldn't have known how her words had just saved a horrible accident.

"We have an Identification! UNSC ship! Repeat, UNSC ship! Marathon Class Cruiser! Receiving IFF signal." The man paused as a collective breath was taken by the bridge crew.

"UNSC _Prophesy!"_

_**Colonial Defense Forces Command Station Zero**_

_**Picon Anchorage**_

_**Picon Orbit**_

Adama blinked as the viewer cut off and the lights in the amphitheater began to return to their normal brightness.

The other captains and Admirals in the room all shuffled uncomfortably in their seats as the rising murmurs and whispers began become louder and louder.

"Quiet." Admiral Nagala firmly ordered as he walked to the fore of the room, his cold eye looking at the sea of worried and concerned faces of the highest ranking men and women in the Colonial military.

They all immediately complied as Nagala cleared his throat.

"So that is our enemy, along with all the footage we were able to compile, from DRADIS readings to gun camera footage from Vipers, Raptors and all warships involved in this incident, including accounts from any survivors from the _Pegasus_." He finished as he grabbed his laser pointer and the huge twenty foot LCD flatscreen flashed to show a still image of the Earth warship.

"Here are the capabilities of the "UNSC" warship, designated a cruiser class ." Nagala spoke as Adama pulled out his notebook and pen and began to write down his notes, the Commander earning a few bemused looks from his younger counterparts with their electronic E-Pads.

"We have here," the admiral spoke as his red laser pointed to the recessed but still visible main batteries of the Earther warship on the somewhat grainy image, "twelve very large and very powerful main batteries mounted in twelve dual turrets, their placement allowing them to cover most of the angles of attack while maintaining the ability to all fire forward. These appear to be railguns in nature, however from our analysis of our damaged and destroyed vessels from the incident, we have determined that their velocity and rounds fired are far in excess of our own technology."

One of the younger captains from one of the fleet's Cruisers spoke up, "Just how much more advanced?"

"We believe that they were firing one ton ferrous rounds at approximately 7,500 kilometers per _second_, it took only eight hits to the main hull of the Battlestar _Perseus _to knock the ship out of action, the ship incurred so much damage that the ship is a total loss."

The collective mood in the room cooled as the realization kicked in.

"_That's some seven or eight times the speed of our coil guns, how the hell can they do that?" _a Captain sitting in front of Adama whispered as Saul shook his head.

"Fraking insane."

The Admiral continued , "Missiles whose velocity alone make them nigh impossible to intercept with Vipers and whose destructive force is like a small nuke, only made worse as analysis of the Bezerker Class cruiser _Hedom_'s battle damage revealed that the missiles' payload is essentially a giant shaped charge that sends jets of essentially plasma that sliced and burned through the main armor belt with little resistance."

People shook their heads as Nagala continued, "And then there is this…" he spoke as the viewer switched to show a video of the Mercury class Battlestar _Heron_ from the outside cameras of the Gunstar _Apostate. _

The Battlestar was in formation with the rest of the fleet firing its main batteries at the Earther warship far out of visual range, its eight main engines blaring bright blue on the screen as the ship pushed its engines to the redline.

Then like a streaking beam of light from the heavens, two orange bolts moving so fast that they were nearly gone in the blink of an eye, tore through the bow and stern of the huge Battlestar.

To say the effects were catastrophic would have been the biggest understatement Adama could think of.

The ship was simply pulverized, pure and simple. It was like watching the ship be shot by a huge bullet as the video went into slow motion to show the surface of the 1800 meter warship, the most powerful and advanced class of warship ever conceived by the Colonies, ripple like the surface of a pond with a rock thrown in it.

The ship simply was obliterated as it was torn apart with huge sections of the ship flying about.

Silence.

Adama had seen the video dozens of times, not to mention the similar fate of the Siegstar _Rega_, but about half of the captains and commanders present hadn't.

"That," Nagala's voice cut through the silence like a knife, "Is believed to be a massive Spinally mounted Mass Driver whose velocity we calculated to be around 12,000 kilometers a second from the reported firing from the UNSC ship to the time of impact. _And _according to our best people's and computers calculations from the estimated amount of firepower that would be needed to achieve that level of destruction, fires a slug with an approximate weight of _two hundred _standard tons. The amount of destructive force that hit the _Rega _and _Heron_ is believed to be on the order of several hundred megatons of kinetic energy, but probably much, _much _more."

"Holy Frak." Tigh whispered as the sheer amount of destructive power that the UNSC ship possessed dawned on him.

"We believe that with the sheer amount of power that must be required to fire these weapons along with the secondary rail guns that whatever powers these ships are possibly decades if not much more advanced than anything Colonial or Cylon." Nagala continued as the hearing continued.

"Our Vipers and Raptors effectiveness were really rendered moot by their highly accurate and powerful point defense systems, which are believed to be of a caliber twice that of our point defense weapons and are able to achieve very high performance figures."

While Nagala continued Adama kept listening intently and realizing just how totally fraked the whole situation was.

Anti Missile lasers, frakking lasers.

The high maneuverability and speed of a ship the size of _Galactica_.

Interceptors that tore through wings of Vipers with ease.

Enemy Soldiers whose weapons tore through Colonial Marines with ease and whose armored suits shrugged off almost any small arms fire.

"We are dealing with an enemy that can not only engage us _far_ out of our own effective range, but essentially one shot our most powerful ships. Their ships armor and hull in contrast proved extraordinarily resilient. Four direct hits from nukes with very little apparent damage, dozens of hits from the main batteries of an entire _squadron_ of warships, and a point blank broadside from a _Mercury _class battlestar which normally would wreck a Cylon Basestar with only minor to moderate damage sustained by the opposing ship," he paused before adding.

"And if you recall we do know for a fact that this ship already had very visible battle damage before contact went hard."

Officers gulped at the realization.

"And on top of all this the apparent capture of Admiral Helena Cain is a huge blow, not only because of the loss of her skills but we managed to loose a ranking fleet Admiral and a major breach in our security, god knows what they will be able to get out of her if she is indeed alive." Nagala shook his head as Adama sighed.

"Crazy bitch shouldn't have jumped in in the first place, she should of known better." Tigh whispered.

"Adar and the Qurem have ordered the fleet to be at a high alert and for our recent increases in ships on the Armistice line to be decreased and pulled back to the colonies for defense," the admiral began as the viewer cut off and the lights returned to their normal ambiance.

"We have no idea if we will make contact again with this UNSC, but if another vessel is sighted, our vessels are to attempt contact and go to an immediate combat posture with ALL fighters launched with Nuclear missiles."

Another captain spoke up.

"Sir why are we seeking to communicate with these people? They are just going to shoot us out of the skies."

The muttering amongst the officers picked up before they were once again silenced.

"The administration and the Admiralty agree that there may be possible room for a peace agreement to be reached, and as a rogue _Colonial _ship that was clearly against orders fired the first shots these Earthers didn't fire first, we did."

One of the younger commanders cut in "But they use…"

"What, Artifical Intelligence?" Nagala's voice rose sharply as he turned to stare down the man.

"Yes they do. Yes I fear AI just as every Colonial does but they are not us. These AI are not Cylons and there may even be a chance that they, unlike us, manage to live in harmony with their creations or at least control them well unlike us. They sought to warn us before hand of their use knowing that we would have a "well founded aversion to AI", to quote the UNSC Captain directly."

The man seemed to try and sink into his seat as Adama and Tigh stole a glance.

"Fair point."

"Not to mention…" Nagala's sighed as the man took off his pair of glasses and rubbed his temples, "I think we proved that fighting them is not in our best interest if we can avoid it."

Ten minutes later Adama and Tigh walked back to their awaiting shuttle through one of the larger corridors that ran the length of the two and a half mile tall and one and a half mile wide bulk that was the main station of the various orbital works that was Picon Anchorage, their view allowing them to look out at the gem that was oceans and islands of Picon a hundred thousand miles away from the stable Lagrange point between the planet and its single natural satellite along with the never ending activity at the Hub of Colonial Military power.

Dozens of warships went into their berths for refits and crew shifts as yet more were under construction at their facilities and shipyards that stretched nearly out of Adama's sight into a glittering of star like formations.

Battlestars, Cruisers, Gunstars and wings of Vipers and Raptors constantly stood guard and formed a large orbital perimeter that even the largest Cylon invasion force would hesitate to go near. Orbital weapons platforms armed with the largest Coil Guns ever devised ringed not only the planet but the inner orbital well of Picon and the anchorage's perimeter as the constant defense force of no less than twenty Battlestars and their dozens of escort ships patrolled the orbit and immediate orbital plane of the world sweeping the skies with their powerful DRADIS that was only further complemented by the huge arrays and sensors on the surface of Picon's moon that pierced the system looking for any signs of hostile forces.

Making their way through yet another set of bulkheads as a group of junior officers walked by, saluting as they did, Saul picked at the growing grey stubble on his chin.

"So what did Nagala tell you? I'm guessing our retirement just got shot out the launch tube."

Sighing Adama nodded, "With the losses the fleet took and the possibility of an Earth warship or fleet of them jumping into one of the systems, not to mention the Cylons with us pulling back half of our damn ships from the Line back to the Colonies, and my experience during the Incident, Nagala and High Command is giving me a pay raise?"

Saul arched his eyebrows, "Rear Admiral?"

Chuckling Adama reached into his pocked and pulled out his new Rank insignia, a much more decorate diamond emblazed with gold with the Colonial Seal in the center.

"Well frak me sideways, what is our command?"

"They are letting me keep the old girl, with the losses they need all the Battlestars they can get so her retirement is now on indefinite hold."

Smiling they squeezed their way through the open doors of an elevator as the lift descended hundreds of decks to the one of the four hugs slipways wear the _Galactica _was now docked.

"They also are upgrading her with all of the latest anti missile batteries and increasing the firepower by adding two more heavy bow guns, essentially giving us the upgrades the Columbia Flight Two ships received, but…" the now Rear Admiral paused.

"They are demanding that we get the latest networked systems installed and they are actually beginning the work now to increase the Command and Control abilities and adding a forward viewing screen they are adding to the latest ships."

Saul turned to him as the doors opened. "And you are letting them?"

Adama shook his head, he had no choice but to allow them to, they were needed and he knew he would need to let his fear of Cylons taking over his ship pass if he was to be any use now.

"I have no choice. Do I like it? No. But maybe I can get over it. We need everything we can get if we have to fight these Earthers again."

The two left the lift and made their way down the docking arm into the awaiting hulk of the _Galactica_.

Nudging him Tigh leaned over, "If your coffee machine suddenly starts to revolt I'll call in the Marines."

Adama let out a laugh as the bulkhead sealed behind him.

_**Reach**_

_**Fleet Command Headquarters**_

_**ONI HQ , Olympic Tower**_

_**New Alexandria, Reach, Eposz Province**_

Rising 2,250 meters above the city of New Alexandria, Olympic Tower was a black gem that speared the heavens and towered over the rest of the 90 square kilometers of towering skyline that rose up through the clouds along the coastline of Eposz and hugged one of the more impressive mountain ranges as the largest city on Reach, New Alexandria glittered in the afternoon sun like the crown jewel that it was.

Only surpassed by the three orbital elevators that rose up into the sky from their artificial islands and gigantic structural bases and complexes twenty miles offshore in the ocean, Olympic tower was where the Office of Naval Intelligence headquartered its mysterious and secretive organization and its more public and approachable public bureaucracy that oversaw the operations from intelligence and image analysis to maintaining its fleet of hyper advanced stealth prowlers to running the most secretive weapons project in the history of man, the Spartan Program.

On the uppermost floors of the tower in one of the larger chambers sat the most powerful people in all of ONI who were also some of the most dangerous within all of the UNSC and UEG. At one end of the large ovalish solid oak table that dominated the center of the room sat Captain Aaron G. Gibson, the director of ONI's Prowler Corps; Rear Admiral Ned Rich, director of Section Three's Covert Operations and the only man said to have crossed the last person at the table and have lived; Vice Admiral Margaret Orlenda Parangosky, the Director of ONI itself.

"So what are you proposing?" Vice Admiral Parangosky's ice like stare seemed to bore holes into Gibson's face as the man tried not to shrink away from the sixty six year old woman's gaze, all the while trying to appear confident as the new commander of ONI's fleet of stealth ships and Prowlers experienced the wrath of Parangosky.

Gulping he answered, "Given the possibility that these Colonials _may_ try and follow the _Prophesy_ back to UNSC space we should send at least one of our Prowlers into their system to monitor them, as well as drop off a long term stealth probe to stay in system long term."

Rear Admiral Rich chuckled as he sipped at his cup of water, "Well of course we are going to do that, I think she means your _other_ reason for keeping an eye on them."

"What he said." Parangosky added with a hint of annoyance.

The man stumbled for half a second before he regained his composure, "Yes…Yes well I reason that if the Covenant DO find them, as they are not too terribly far away from our space; about two hundred light years from Harvest up spiral, then it would be reasonable to assume that they too will be under threat from the Covenant. And as they are most definitely not as advanced as us AND concentrated in four star systems very close together these Colonials are at a huge risk if the Covenant do run across them."

At that Parangosky nodded in understanding as Admiral Rich opened his mouth to reply.

"What of the Colonial Admiral that we captured and the data we extracted from their ship's computers?"

"As for the data they have absolutely no coordinants for Earth or any of the colonies for that matter, and we know most of their current fleet deployments and their fleets along with a good understanding of the fleet strength, not to mention all of the communication codes that we managed to procure, though around half of them were deleted as they tried to purge their systems." The Vice Admiral cooly stated as she pulled a personal hologram emitter from her pocket and placed it on the table.

Quickly she brought up the image of the Colonial Admiral.

The woman, aged in her mid-forties and identified as Helena Cain, was currently being held at a high security UNSC Detention center at Fort Hardin perched on top of a large plateau that was over looking the western portion of the city.

The woman was sitting on the small bed that was a part of the "quarters" that she was housed in, reading a tablet that the UNSC and ONI had installed an automatic translation system to that had served the purpose of not just giving the prisoner something to do but also served the purpose of allowing the Colonial to learn more about the UNSC and the UEG, saving time and also allowing the Admiral to see just how much trouble her government had gotten itself into.

"Well as she is human she is subject to all of the articles of the Geneva convention, and on top of it she is a flag officer from another government whom we have not officially declared war with so treating her as best as we can is a necessity." Ned Rich answered as Parangosky nodded as her eyes danced over a readout before she added in.

"Not that there is any reason really to torture or interrogate her, with modern technology and serum's we simply extracted all of the intel that we needed that we asked her."

The other two nodded. With the usual march that technology had been on since the beginning of man's first tentative steps into space five centuries ago, lie detection systems and actual truth serums that worked by targeting the specific regions and chemical reactions in the brain allowed for captives to simply be asked for the desired knowledge and the answer written down and checked to authenticate. Though in certain circumstances ONI was not above "enhanced interrogation" or outright torture, the need to do so was low. However as a result most prisoners during the Rebellion War and the Insurrection usually committed suicide before allowing themselves to be captured by ONI.

"The threat that these Colonials represent to us at this time is moderate, but should it come down to it a couple of our Frigates or Destroyers with a cruiser or two could hold off possibly an entire Colonial Battlesquadron. However as I am sure you are aware Admiral Cain did not in fact order any attack on the UNSC _Prophesy_ and the actions were actually from a lone rogue Colonial," Margaret checked her data pad for the designation of the Colonial warship, "Siegestar."

"The actions that happened afterwards were merely an escalation as would likely happen, so there is the possibility that we can still try to talk to them again, and if they refuse we merely destroy a ship or two of theirs and leave them be, merely keeping watch on them as we have our own problems to deal with that are far more pressing."

Parangosky turned to Gibson, "As for your proposal it has been confirmed. We are in fact sending two Prowlers, UNSC _Wink of an Eye_ and UNSC _Blackbird _to the Cyrannus sector to keep tabs on the Colonials. They are departing shortly from Reach Anchorage Station Gamma and Sol and will make best speed, arriving there in about a week."

_**UNSC HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6**_

_** The Hive**_

_** Sydney, Australia**_

_** Earth**_

"It would appear that the actions of Captain Scott J. Riley were in all accordance to UNSC protocols , one can conclude that he did everything in his power to avoid Hard Contact with the Twelve Colonies and their military." Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb concluded as the rest of the UNSC Security Committee listened in before Brigadier General Daniel Harper of the UNSC Air Force cut in.

"How can one call obliterating a Colonial vessel with a Marathon Cruiser's number one heavy MAC gun and a 200 ton slug travelling at 12,000 kilometers a second NOT hostile? Yes the Colonials did fire a spread of fifty multi megaton nuclear missiles but all were intercepted and according to their performance they could have kept doing that all day against a _Frigate's_ point defenses with not a single missile getting through unless at point blank range. He decided to act with force that was _far_ more than was sent against him instead of trying to re-establish contact or even giving a warning shot or, hell disabling the offending vessel." The representative of the UNSCAF representative bellowed.

Now it was the chairman of the UNSC Defense Forces Security Committee, the man in charge of the _entire_ UNSC and its fleet of ten thousand plus a lot more and growing warships and two and a half billion front line service men and women and all of its vast network of facilities, bases and outposts , to speak.

Fleet Admiral Sir Terrance Hood, or simply Lord Hood.

"Harper do you honestly believe that one of our Captains, especially one who has seen so much combat against the Covenant from the beginning with Admiral Cole to _NOT_ be a little on edge when conducting a first contact? Especially when fifty nuclear missiles were just launched at his command? Of course not. And these Colonials still managed to trash the hell out of his ship, even though he brought down ," Hood paused to pull up his data pad.

"Two enemy warships nearly as large as an Everest Class Battlecruiser, a smaller battleship analogue, three heavy destroyer analogues, two escorts, a single missile cruiser, and crippling three more escorts and a light cruiser along with destroying what, two hundred or so Colonial fighters _AND_ managing to capture the navigational data and a Colonial Fleet Admiral…..quite a day." He finished as Major General Strauss of the Marines whistled.

"That's gonna be quite a bit of paint on those scorecards."

Nodding Hood continued, "His actions are no longer under review, what is , however, is the threat of these _Colonials_ to Earth and her colonies."

Whitcomb nodded as he stood up from his chair at one end of the large Crecent shaped table as the lights in the white washed chamber dimmed slightly and the holo-emmiter began to show readouts taken from the battle of various Colonial hardware.

"Here is the mainline Colonial warship, the Colonial _Battlestar, _ as they refer to it as" he spoke as the viewer shifted to show the metallic form of a Valkyrie class battlestar.

"There appear to be three separate classes of these Battlestars, the smaller of which you see here, with the larger classes being the two much larger ones that the _Prophesy_ destroyed and a sort of "middle weight class" which was also observed." Whitcomb continued as the viewer switched to views and a three dimensional representation of a Pegasus class battlestar and a Columbia class.

"They are a sort of hybridization of a carrier and a battleship and as such they can launch an estimated 120 of their smaller singleships supported by their more heavily armed Gunships, and are armed with the largest weaponry the Colonials field, around two dozen or more main guns which are lower velocity coil guns which are the only real threat to our ships aside from Nuclear weaponry which we can easily intercept and are much less powerful than the secondary railgun batteries on our warships by an order of magnitude."

The briefing continued as the committee reviewed known Colonial military hardware, ships of all classes from escorts to Gunstars to the diminutive Vipers that many on the committee viewed as an oddity as they watched yet another be torn apart by the 60mm guns of a streaking Longsword.

"Their infantry equipment is even worse off I'm afraid, as you can see here," Whitcomb pointed to the projection as two black armored clad Colonial marines were cut apart from a burst of an ODST's MA6 as they watched through the man's helmet feed, "Their equivilant to our Marines are lightly armed relative to us and are equipped along the lines of a 21st century soldier, though their use of explosive rounds somewhat mitigates this, we are assuming that their Marines are used more for ship board operations and security and not front line heavy combat and first wave assault's such as our Marines. From what we can decern from the shipboard AI's hacking of civilian channels they leave that bit to their Army, more or less vise versa from ours.

"Threat analysis?" Hood merely grunted from his position at the fore of the table.

Whitcomb turned to him, "Medium to moderate at best, if they stay at long range then its just a turkey shoot, though their FTL is what is most interesting."

The others nodded as the man switched the holo viewer over to an image from the _Prophesy's_ forward cameras as the Marathon Cruiser maneuvered its way through the asteroid field it had taken refuge in after utterly destroying a Colonial Battlestar.

The space in front of it was empty save for tumbling asteroid and debris as old as the star system itself as the ship navigated the proverbial obstacle course.

Then suddenly a scant several dozen miles away a bright and very brief flash of light briefly bathed the screen in orange light before the light retracted in a flash and out of the center of the point in space where the light appeared the Colonial flagship jumped into existence, firing every weapon at its disposal before the screen video was paused and the lights in the chamber re-appeared.

The members of the counsil began to talk amongst themselves before Lord Hood himself spoke up.

"That, ladies and gentlemen was an _in system_ FTL jump that was not in anyway based on the physics of Slipspace and is a currently completely unknown form of Faster Than Light Travel. The enemy ship simply initiated this "jump" and then as soon as it did appeared right off of the _Prophesy's_ bow "

The people room erupted in conversation before an army Colonel at the end of the table spoke up.

"If we could get our hands on this technology the tactical uses for our ships would dramatically increase the chances of our ships successfully combating the Covenant in battle. If I may so ask for the committee to consider allowing an ONI Prowler with an elite boarding team to capture a smaller Colonial vessel we could possibly reverse engineer it."

The members of the committee turned to face the man with growing interest.

_**UNSC Wink Of An Eye**_

_**Prowler Class Vessel**_

_**Sol System**_

_**UNSC Alpha Two Base **_

_**Lagarange Point Three**_

Commander Steven Branson resisted the urge to make a face as he drank what the UNSC dared call coffee as he sat down in the commander's chair in the cramped Combat Information Center ,which was dimly lit and as a result the holographic screens and tactical displays gave an eerie glow as the other twenty officers present all went about their assigned duties readying the 162 meter long jet black manta ray-like ship to depart from the hulking station and starport that was simply named Alpha Three from one of the six dozen docks that dotted the six by ten kilometer station.

With a flick of his wrist he brought up his personal display, showing the status of the ship and the current standing orders.

Reading over them the ten year veteran of the Prowler corps paused as he read the latest from ONI Headquarters.

Tapping the display to enlarge the message his mission parameters had been updated, and recently.

Reading over them his eyes widened as he read.

Setting down his now empty cup he looked out the bridge windows, taking in the sight of the never ending waves of lights that were civilian ships of all classes and endless lines of transports looking to offload their goods at any one of the huge Civilian ports at both Luna's Lagrangian points or Earth's network of spaceports built atop of the homeworld's two dozen space elevators. All of this was watched over by the almost incomprehensibly vast array of defenses the UNSC Home Fleet had in Earth's gravity well alone, no less the twenty eight battlclusters of Semi Mobile Mark V Super Mac Defense Platforms that were growing larger by the month.

The Holo pedistol next to him lit up as the ship's AI, known as Fallon appeared as "his" avatar of an old Rancher complete with an American accent flashed into existence.

"All systems and stations are reporting that they are green and command has given us the go for launch. The slipspace drive is primed and is laying in a course for the _Procryan_ system where we will rendezvous with UNSC _Red Horse_ before continuing on to the Cyrannus sector." Fallon spoke as one of the officers from her station rolled her eyes at the AI's almost absurd sounding choice of accent.

He couldn't help but agree, the last AI they had was far less eccentric in its tastes, but part of him enjoyed a break from the usual.

Nodding Branson leaned forward in his seat as he turned to the middle aged helmsman at the fore of the cramped bridge, Lieutenant Haverson , the man eager for orders.

"Take us out."

"Aye sir. Engaging thrusters, one quarter burn." The man replied as the various stations reported in.

"Weap Ops green, all mines, pulse lasers and missiles are locked in. Fusion Torpedoes are all loaded up and locked down." His first officer responded.

Fallon chimed in as the Prowler pulled itself away from its berth and the docking collar retracted back into the titanic station as another awaiting UNSC ship, a Frigate, waited to fit its much larger bulk into the same space.

"Station command is giving us a clear departure vector, we are cleared by the fleet." As the representation of a flight path appeared on the viewscreen's heads up display.

"Sensors, active countermeasures, check?" Branson called out as he scratched at his blonde hair that he noted needed to be trimmed.

"Baffles, green. Ablative Coating, green. Texture Buffers, green. Active Cloaking field green. X-ELF Tri-Band radar green."

The Prowler put miles between it and the looming angular form of Alpha Two as a small battle squadron of two frigates, a destroyer and a Marathon class cruiser with their Longsword Interceptor squadron's escorting , shadowed the ship before returning to their duties, rejoining the six hundred warships in Earth's gravity well alone, that which was merely a third of what was the enormous Home Fleet tasked with defending the homeworld and the billions on Mars and the Jovian Colonies.

"Exiting the Lunar Defense perimeter, we are go for Slipspace." Haverson announced as Branson nodded, thinking of his orders and his family back on Mars that he would get to spend a full uninterrupted year with after this deployment.

"Engage."

_**Armistice Line**_

_**RPV Class Destroyer Far Sight Lost**_

Ship Master Quno Talamee looked on with growing displeasure at the bridge of his ship.

The Sangheilli officers at their stations within the bridge deep inside the bowels of the 672 meter destroyer were just as bored with their duty as he was, no less the lesser Unggoy and Jackals who scampered about carrying out their assigned duties.

How did he get stuck with this honor-less task?

He and his ship was supposed to be killing the infernal humans, not simply watching them.

However he was under direct orders from the Prohpet of Regret no less to watch these newly discovered, as they were being called by his fellow Sangheilli, "lesser" humans.

An order he and the dozen other ships sent to this sector or space had been more than willing to carry out.

That had been a week ago.

After being forced to watch as ships full of humans needing to be exterminated, many of them defenseless, pass through not only his sensors but within the range of his weapons and then forced to let them go in order to not reveal his position had made him furious.

But now the order had come, he could finally move his warship out of hiding fom behind the cover of a large barren planetoid that had hid his ship for the past three days in this rocky and un-noteworthy system that these humans seemed to always frequent.

And it couldn't have come at a better time.

He along with every other commander in the Covenant had heard of the humiliation that the Fleet of Glorious Consequence had suffered with their defeat by the humans and the now notorious "_UNSC Admiral Cole_" at the human colony world of _Capella._

He like every other Covenant warrior was thirsty for revenge, and though not of the _UNSC_, these lesser "Colonials" would do.

"Shipmaster, human vessels have entered the system, reads as four warships, two primaries each with escort that are separated into two groups. Range forty thousand units to the primary group and a hundred thousand units to the second." His sensor officer called out from his station surrounded by holographic readouts as the ugly human ships appeared on the viewscreen.

The main warship followed the same basic design principles that these lesser humans favored, more streamlined than those of the UNSC humans but still hideous to look at. It was about two hundred meters longer than his own ship and the escorting ship, which was smaller than his own and appeared to be optimized for escorting duties with a heavy anti-single ship armament visible.

The third ship appeared to be a carrier vessel of sorts, around 550 meters with a large hangar deck that was partially open to vacuum as a flight of dart shaped and primitive looking single ships flew a patrol mission around their mother ship.

The carrier's escort was a small ship half of its size that was more of a gunship, he surmised to be anti-singleship vessel of sorts that was hardly a threat.

Quno snapped his mandibles twice before forming them into a frightening human looking grin.

"All crew, battlestations! Repulsor engines to full power. Shields powered up and charge pulse lasers and both lateral plasma torpedo projectors and launch our flight of Seraphs!"

_**CDF Bezerker Class Cruiser**_

_**CDF **_ _**Orion**_

"DRADIS is clear with only the _Brimer _and her escort sixty thousand kilometers off of our starboard side. Threat board is clean." The DRADIS operator announced as captain Rachel Aggo nodded.

"Good, keep standard sweep, we are only three million kilometers from the armistice line, cant be too careful." The forty three year old Virgonese captain replied as the crew kept up their work at their various stations in the cavernous Combat Information Center.

Rachel sighed as she leaned over the tactical display, moving a stray band of black hair from her view as she ran rubbed her darker palms together.

The standard patrols of the Line were much longer now, what with command pulling half of their ships back to the colonies out of fear of another encounter with the now dreaded thirteenth tribe.

She had to repeatedly reassure her husband and family that she was going to be okay as they too like so many other civilians had succumbed to the fear mongering that the news media was spreading, both intentional and unintentional.

There was still a chance that if she did, in fact run into a UNSC warship they could still talk things over and mend it, an order command had pressed into every commander.

She had to agree. After reading the reports and watching the now viral video of a Colonial Siegestar obliterated by a single shot from the Earther warship's main weapon systems she did not want to pick a fight with those people, AI users or not.

However there was still the business of the Cylons and the ever present danger that they one day may return, something that had inadvertently helped the Colonies stay unified and thus stronger.

And that was why her little patrol group was out here.

There had been strange reports in this sector as well as several others of sightings of strange "alien" or unidentified vessels that did not match any known or possible Cylon design patterns or UNSC designs trailing some civilian and Military vessels from extreme range before disappearing or returning to hiding.

That was why command had sent her ship, now one of the heaviest combatants left on the Line aside from five Valkyries and a single Mercury, with the Gunstar _Solaris _to meet up with the older style carrier _Brimer_ and her Scythe Class interceptor escort ship _Isa._

They were looking for anything out of the ordinary. And so far after three days Rachel's patience was wearing thin.

"DRADIS scan?" she asked, knowing it was going to be the same answer as her eyes glanced over at the cluster of large asteroids now thirty thousand kilometers off of her bow.

The DRADIS operator turned to her, the man's expression holding the look of, "_What do you think."_

Before he opened his mouth however the DRADIS display gave a shrill beep of a contact.

Rachel's heart picked up as she tore a look up to the main DRADIS display.

She gasped as where there had been nothing in the asteroid field where she had just looked there was now a single DRADIS contact with the ominous _Unknown_ marker beneath the Icon.

"Bring us around! Bring up our forward cameras and please tell me what that contact is!" she shouted as the CIC suddenly sprung into action.

He XO, a man of barely thirty years who had rising quickly through the ranks spoke up.

"Ma'am it is an unidentified contact baring positive ten degrees off of our port side. Range thirty thousand kilometers!"

Gripping the edge of the tactical display as the ship shuddered beneath her while the 800 meter long cruiser with its escorting Gunstar following suite close behind, turned to face the new contact she again addressed the DRADIS officer.

"Profile? Do we have anything?"

"No ma'am." The officer spoke as he kept his eye's zeroed in on the display. "It must have been running silent behind the larger asteroid. I have never seen anything like it. Coming on screen."

The main viewer switched to show a ship that looked as alien looking as she had ever seen before which was larger than her escorting gunstar but not as big as her own vessel.

It was oddly purple in its color and was bulbous, with a larger bow section and a flowing amidships. The tail of the vessel then was split into two vertical fins or towers just as graceful in appearance as the rest of the ship that went for several hundred meters vertically that tilted inwards. The vessel had both a menacing appearance and yet a strange elegance to it.

"Are we getting any readings?"

"Very few, what we are getting are off the scale but most off our scans are blocked by some sort of field that surrounds the vessel, that is what our DRADIS is reading."

Wondering what the hell she was seeing she turned to her XO.

"All crew to Battlestations and set condition two, have the other ships follow suite and ready our squadron of Vipers…."

Rachel was cut off by the coms officer.

"We are being hailed!"

Turning around and arching her eyebrow as her mind continued to race she almost shouted out.

"Put it on!"

The CIC's radio's cackled and fizzled for a moment before normalizing as a strange and inhuman sounding voice speaking in a muddled and synthetic sounding Caprican filled the CIC.

…"_Your destruction is the will of the Gods. We are the Covenant, and we are their instrument."_

The message ended as fast as it came as the crew looked at each other in both confusion and worry before Rachel grabbed the ship wide com set.

She didn't like this.

"All crew to action stations! Weapons hot, repeat weapons hot! Launch alert Vipers…"

She was cut off as an explosion threw her to the deck.

Twenty two pulse lasers cored deep into the ship burning through armor plating thick enough to take a broadside from a Cylon Basestars and Jormang class Assault vessels, ripping open sections to vacuum and destroying several weapon mounts and damaging the port side launch tubes.

"What the hell did they hit us with? It was instantaneous!" Rachel coughed as she got to her feet as alarms and Klaxons rang.

"Some sort of very high powered directed energy beam, a full on laser! We have hull breaches in decks eight and one and the Viper launch tubes are damaged on our port side, we cant …"

The XO was cut off as the ship shook again as yet more lasers from the alien ship struck, again coring their way into the vessel and now blowing out one of the missile batteries and sending several of her crew into the unforgiving vacuum.

"Return fire!" Captain Aggo.

The _Orion's _main battery of eight heavy railguns and twelve medium sized railguns silently flashed, sending twenty projectiles screaming towards the enemy vessel as the _Orion's _escort _Solaris_ fired in kind, adding her fire to the mix as the Colonial warship sent twenty heavy anti ship missiles rocketing away.

As the alien vessel was on the edge of their range as Rachel watched the missiles and the faster projectiles streak towards their target, which made no attempt to evade as the seconds ticked by.

More pulse lasers lanced out, now targeting the missiles which were quickly knocked out of the sky with almost arrogant ease as Rachel cursed.

"Come on. Ready another salvo!" she ordered just before the railgun's struck.

On the viewscreen which zoomed in on the alien vessel the rounds suddenly impacted a shimmering electrical wall of energy just in front of the alien warship as the rounds merely bounced off or were absorbed by the "shields" as Rachel and the crew recoiled in shock and surprise.

"Energy shields?"

_**Far Sight Lost**_

Quno joined in the crew's laughter at the pathetic display of firepower these _Colonial_ humans put up.

"Shields holding at 92% shipmaster." The helmsman announced from his station as Quno grinned as his four fingered hand gripped his family's sacred energy blade's deactivated hilt.

"Launch Seraphs and have them target the second group. Target the lead ships with our plasma torpedoes. And paint the second group with our lasers."

_**CDF Orion**_

Rachel watched in horror as another two salvos and missiles from her ship and the _Solaris_ merely bounced off of the shimmering energy field as the alien vessel launched a flight of twelve large and fast teardrop shaped fighters.

"We are loosing power to our primary weapons! _Solaris _reports hull breaches on almost every deck and _Brimer _and _Isi_ are reporting they are being targeted by enemy fighters. They are launching their own." Her xo called out as several crewmembers put out a fire that had erupted from a blown out console with an extinguisher.

Hell, this was what it must fell like.

Thinking that she wouldn't see her family she turned to the radio operator.

"Contact _Brimer _and have them launch a Raptor and send them back to command, tell them what has happened here. Ready a full spread of our Nukes with every last available missile and gun we can muster…."

"Enemy is firing a torpedo of sorts, incoming very frakking fast!" the DRADIS officer called as Rachel watched two blue streaking lines and bolts of angry hellfire launch from the lateral lines of the alien ship and tear their way across the distance between the two sides in seconds.

"Evasive! Flak field now!" the captain shouted as the two Colonial warships threw themselves onto new courses as fast as their engines and thrusters could while streams of cannon shells and a wall of explosive flak appeared around each ship.

It did nothing.

The first Plasma torpedo struck the _Solaris_ directly amid ships, and with horrific results.

Against UNSC battle plate, which was now being polarized and upgraded with reactive plates, it was effective.

Against Colonial warship's armor, no less the lighter armor of an escort, it was like striking paper with a lighter flame.

The torpedo struck, imparting its impressive kinetic energy on the ship, and then burned its way inside the ship before finally expending its energy.

Whole decks suddenly aflame and exposed to vacuum exploded and burst outward, all the while munitions and the very atmosphere ignited and fanned the flames, which set off dozens of secondary explosions.

The Gunstar's weapons went dark as the ship began a slow tumble before its reactor blew, turning the warship into a messy fiery smear in space.

The second torpedo, fired five seconds after the first flew towards the _Orion_ as the ship threw itself desperately onto a new course as dozens of missiles and several nuclear missiles rocket away while the ship's point defenses and flak tried in vain to intercept the ball of hellfire.

The last image that Captain Rachel Aggo saw was a bright blue searing light before everything got hot , then went black.

The _Orion_, its alligator shaped bow a flaming wreck and torn apart by explosions, began a lifeless tumble as the CIC was eviscerated and no longer with any control just as it's the only missile to hit the Covenant ship, detonated in a sudden flash that enveloped the ship in a firestorm.

The ship emerged seconds later with its shields alit in electrical fire and accelerated past the dying _Orion_.

_**Raptor 118**_

_**Callsign "Talon"**_

_**Lieutenant Hadrame **_

"My gods!"Lieutenant Hadrame's com exploded in chatter and curses as the _Orion_ and her escort were obliterated.

The _Brimer_, an older style carrier and her escorting Scythe class interceptor escort ship _Isa_, executed a full burn as they slowly began to turn away from the threat, the commanding officer, commander Devanna, realizing the immanent danger and the need to disengage.

However it would need about three minutes for its FTL to spin up, precious time that these "Covenant" would not allow.

Twelve of those strange teardrop shaped alien fighters were baring down on the carrier, and its fighter wing of forty Vipers with ten Raptors were racing to intercept along with the _Isa,_ the two hundred meter warship, the smallest commissioned class of vessel in the Colonial Defense Forces, pushed its oversized engines to put itself and its large array of point defense guns, flak cannons and most importantly, anti-fighter missiles; between the _Brimer_ and the oncoming fighters.

"Range, 200 kilometers and dropping, estimated time to target for our fighters, thirty seconds at present velocity." His co-pilot announced before adding.

"Frak me these fighters are coming in fast." Hadrame breathed as the Vipers pulled several kilometers ahead, the pilot keeping an eye on the closing enemy icons on the DRADIS and the now visible twinkling of blue lights that were growing larger by the second.

"All Vipers hold it steady. Get those missile's locked on boys!" Hadrame called out to his squadron as his ship used its larger DRADIS suite to act as AWACS for the Vipers.

"_We are having trouble getting a lock for more than a second or two…frak me they are on top of us!"_ one of the squadron leaders shouted as the alien teardrops flew head on into the Colonial squadrons and fired just out of the Viper's gun range.

"Gods!" he breathed as pulses of bright blue energy hit a dozen of the leading Vipers, which simply turned into short lived fireballs of molten shrapnel as the other pilots scattered and executed dramatic flips to attempt to get shots off at the attackers.

Several of the short bursts of orange tracers hit the alien fighters dead on, but to Hadrame's shock were deflected or absorbed by electrical energy shields that flashed into existence as the teardrop fighters blew through the formation of Vipers.

Muttering a stream of curses Hadrame winced as his irises were blinded by a trio of pulses from a screaming Covenant fighter that just missed the wildly maneuvering Raptor.

"_My fire is just bouncing off!"_ the radio crackled as the sudden screams of several more Viper pilots filled the comms as they were hit by pulses of plasma that burned through them.

"Frak me! What the hell do we hit them with?" Hadrame screamed as he flipped the Raptor over to see yet two more Vipers die as they tried and failed to penetrate the shields of the larger Covenant fighters, who usually and casually flipped on their axis to spear a pursuing Viper that poured streams of cannon fire into their shields with plasma fire.

The other twelve Covenant fighters tore through the fire that the _Isa_ put up or avoided the few missiles that rose to meet them as their shields were lit, absorbing flak and shrapnel with ease as they released twelve streaking lines of smaller Plasma torpedoes that burned through the thin hull of the escort ship near the engine block.

The ship buckled as it struck by a punch as the plasma burned through the ship's armor as one hit the main drive assembly, trashing the engines as the ship's maneuvering thrusters struggled to regain control from the slow spin it was sent into.

"_All units pull back now!"_ the commander of the _Brimer_ screamed into the coms as one by one the few remaining Vipers were blown out of the skies by the alien fighers, whom turned to make an attack run on the _Isa_ to finish it off.

"We cant make it!" his co-pilot screamed as Hadrame threw the Raptor's engines well past the redlines in an attempt to make it back to the mother ship a hundred miles away.

The _Isa_ disappeared in a fireball as the alien fighters flew through the dissipating cloud of debris and fire with their shields enveloping them in a cocoon of energy shielding.

As the carrier grew larger the ship threw out a wall of fire aimed to keep the attackers off, which worked, but only for a moment as they regrouped, one of them right on his Raptor's tail.

"Its right on out tail!"

As the alien fighter bored down on them its shields suddenly lit up as one of the surviving Viper's piloted by one of the squadron leaders hit it with a full burst from its cannons before flipping over and latching onto the alien ship's tail.

"_Get out of here!"_ the pilot yelled as he evaded return fire from the alien craft that flipped over on its axis.

Hadrame watched as the brave Pilot rolled his craft in a snap roll while energy bolts flashed by with feet to spare, unload streams of 25 mm high velocity cannon shells into the Covenant fighter as its shields flashed and grew brighter as the pilot held down the trigger, the alien craft suddenly on the defensive.

Another stream of cannon fire and the shields disappeared in an electrical spark as several of the shells ripped gouges into the craft's hull.

The blazing blue light from the alien teardrop fighter's engine glowed as the Viper pilot screamed as he managed to get a lock on with his missiles, firing two at the Covenant fighter as it flipped over yet again to try and destroy the Colonial fighter.

The first missile failed to hit as it streaked by just as the second missile hit the now unshielded craft.

The two Colonials screamed in glee as the Covenant fighter exploded in a blue explosion as its reactor went critical, the shattered remains tumbling away.

"They CAN be killed."

Minutes later, the _Brimer_ under assault from the remaining Covenant Seraphs and the fast closing Covenant Destroyer that began to assail the carrier with its pulse lasers, damaging the starboard side of the carrier and opening up a deck to space; made the most dramatic FTL jump in Colonial fleet history.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Caprica City, Caprica**_

_**Colonial Capitol Center**_

President Adar felt like he had just been hit in the gut as he read the latest report that had been rushed to him from his aid who had been working for him since his days as the mayor of Caprica City.

Muttering curses the President of the Unified Colonies of Kobol sat down at his desk as he looked outside the windows of the North Wing across the lawns of the Capitol center towards the skyline of Caprica City glittering in the evening light reflecting off of the bay.

Now nearly a month ago already the "Incident" with the UNSC, now informally named by the press, "The 13TH Battle" had caused him and his administration so much trouble that his very office had been threatened by the more hardline elements of both his party and the Federalist party.

He had been on constant damage control for weeks now and after press briefing after press briefing things were beginning to quiet down.

The public outcry at the disaster had been two fold.

First as with all events such as this, the first reaction was a call for an immediate retaliation against this UNSC before cooler heads prevailed (as well as those who knew the true facts behind the incident such as their being only ONE UNSC ship).

Then the people and the legislature had demanded to know who was responsible and went on a proverbial witch hunt , demanding hearings from almost all of the Admirals and captains of the Colonial Defense Forces Fleet and Marines.

After the true cause for the battle dawned on the senators and representatives they abruptly shut their mouths at the realization that it was in fact _Them_ whom fired first.

The fact was quietly swept under the rug while the military and pro-military parts of the legislature ceased the opportunity to pass much wanted military expansion bills.

Now the fleet was going to get thirty new Battlestars, twenty of them the latest Mercury Classes and ten of the new Prometheus Class Battlestars, of which only two of the new 1900 meter long beasts of armor and railguns sporting huge batteries of missiles replacing the flak batteries complemented by the new Close In Point Defense System on top of their air wing of Vipers and Raptors; were currently in the fleet finishing up their trials.

And that was on top of the usual increase in escort ships as well as the navy pulling out older decommissioned ships out of the rust yards and giving them skeleton crews to help with planetary defenses, which the civilians were demanding out of fear of a UNSC warship jumping in and dropping a nuclear weapon on the colonies.

But by far the biggest winner out of this whole fiasco were the Marines, who after seeing how their weapons and armor were nigh useless against the advanced and heavily armed Earth Troopers had lobbied hard and won a dramatic increase in their funding. Now the Colonial Marine Corps were arming themselves with the highest caliber assault rifles they could get their hands on and adding as much armor protection to their Marine's BDU's as they could afford.

But now this had to happen.

When the carrier _Brimer_ jumped right on top of Picon command unscheduled sporting hull breaches in half of the ship's compartments the local defenses and ships had nearly jumped the trigger and turned the warship into a pile of debris.

However after the positively shaken Commander Devanna had de-briefed the very concerned Admiralty who after taking one look at the ship's ghastly battle damage had immediately realized they were dealing with something much worse than a bad contact with the UNSC.

Over 1200 lives of Colonial men and women in uniform were now lost to vacuum after being eviscerated by energy beams and what Giaus Baltar and others were simply calling "Plasma Torpedoes" as videos and images of several salvos of missiles and railgun fire from the _Orion_ and her escorts bouncing off of honest to gods energy shields almost made command wish for the good old Cylons and had left them and Adar stunned.

The UNSC, as advanced and powerful as they had been, were still human and could be reasoned with. And their technology, while still possibly a century if not more (how this was possible, not to mention the very actual existence of Earth) advanced than the Colonies, their technology still _resembled_ known technology that they could recognize.

No this, this Covenant as they so declared themselves to be ; they were as alien as they could be. And they had yet to even be seen in person outside of that single frakking ship from Hades itself.

The UNSC had only killed armed Colonial service men and women when they boarded the _Pegasus_, while this _Covenant_ had simply murdered Colonial lives with no reason other than a declared religious crusade by the "Gods".

Now more and more ships near the Line and the trading routes in sectors and small outposts near there were disappearing.

And Adar now knew why.

They were being hunted.

Remembering the meeting the Fleet had with the UNSC Captain before things turned sour he remembered the warning that he had told them about the Covenant.

_It wouldn't matter, you are human, fair game._

Wondering how this UNSC was faring against this now very clearly alien threat he had not wanted the threat to grow any worse.

The day before he had ordered the fleet to assemble a task force of the most powerful ships they could muster to enter the system where the incident had taken place and attempt to assess the situation and if at all possible talk to these _Covenant_.

If things went bad then they were to take that ship and whatever else not of Colonial origin present out at all costs.

_**Colonial Task Force 213**_

_**CDF Prometheus Class Battlestar **_

_**CDF Prometheus**_

_**Four Days Later**_

_**Leoni System**_

Admiral Kaviss winced as the unusual sensation of reverting back to realspace from a Jump passed through his body and went as fast as it had come.

Shaking his head the Sixty five year old Admiral , a veteran of the Cylon wars whose Virgonese family's proud history of naval tradition stretched back into the Virgonese Empire, walked to the fore of the cavern of displays, readouts and officers fast at work at consoles and demanded a sitrep.

The outside cameras popped up to display the other nineteen ships in the task force, five more Battlestars from three Valkyries to a heavily upgraded Columbia and a single Mercury class, eight Bezerker cruisers, three Gunstars and three Siegestars as they disgorged their Vipers and accelerated alongside his brand new command ship.

"DRADIS, full sweep. Tell me what you see. I want all ship to immediately go to Condition Two and to set to a loose formation of fifteen mile spacing between each ship. Keep FTL drives spooled up for emergency jumps." He ordered as the klaxon began to wail and the officers raced to complete their duties, all of them with a look of worry in their faces.

Quickly remembering and reviewing the briefing he had received about the enemy he was up against he turned back to the display before him.

"DRADIS scan reads clear up to 200,000 kilometers, Vipers and Raptors are accelerating ahead." The officer spoke as Kaviss kept a firm gaze on the Tactical Displays.

"Belay that order, have them keep a distance of a hundred miles and no more. Keep them in a defensive posture. If these Covenant have lasers on their ships then anything but an all out attack by a wing of Vipers will simply be easy prey for them. We will rely on the StealthStars." He added as the communications officer nodded and patched them through to the lead pilot of the flight of three Stealth stars that had jumped in about thirty seconds before the main fleet and we now a distance of a fifty thousand kilometers ahead of them after an immediate in system jump and were now coasting silently under total blackout.

The laser system that was used only even knew where they were thanks to the faint IFF signal that was sent out once a minute as a laser link established itself between the giant flagship and the tiny advanced Stealth ship.

"_Command Actual this is Night Wing One. Over."_ The radio crackled as Kaviss picked up the hand set.

"What do you see?"

The time it took for the pulses of light and the translation software along with all of the encryption gear made the delay hardly even noticeable like radio was, something that the Fleet was fast switching over to or adding to their vessels.

"_We can see the remains of the Orion and her escort. We have a lot of debris twenty thousand clicks near us, metal composition matches Colonial Vipers and a Scythe Class Interceptor. We also have a single Unknown piece of debris among them. Gods that Cruiser had its bow blown open , melted or something."_

"Any signs of Covenant?" he asked as the tension in the CIC and those of the other ships reached a fever pitch.

"_No but we do have…wait…Frak! Shit!"_ the pilot broke into a stream of curses as Kaviss tried to determine the reason.

The DRADIS operator did it for him.

"Contact! Four Unknowns! Right on top of the Stealthstars! Range 60,000 kilometers! I've Lost contact!"

His heart now in his throat Admiral Kaviss rushed into action.

"On screen! Profiles!"

The screen switched to show what he was not wanting to see.

Looking out at the unfamiliar forms of the alien warships he took note of their shapes and makeup.

One of them was the same nearly 700 meter bulbous Covenant warships of the same type that destroyed the _Orion_ . The largest of the four contacts was just over a thousand meters in length and unlike the previous ship, laked the vertical "tower" section and was simply curvaceous and bulbous, looking more like a sea creature and situated in the center of the Covenant formation.

The last two ships were much smaller, around three hundred meters in length that looked more like a luminous manta ray with its design and bluish hue that took up positions on either side of the larger vessels, acting as escorts.

"Action stations!" Kaviss roared as the men and women, already at their stations readied their weapons.

"Activate main cannons and keep all power save for the limited amount needed for maneuvering and point defense to be shunted their. All flak batteries to maximum and I want ALL of our nukes prepped for launch. Sustained fire can take the shields out on their fighters it should work on their ships. Prepare a full salvo."

"Aye sir!"

Kaviss looked to the display once more before making his mind up.

He knew in the back of his mind that trying to talk to these aliens was a waste of time but he had to at least try.

"Hail the larger ships, all frequencies. Repeat, We are the Unified Colonies of Kobol. You have entered our space and we mean you no harm. We wish to talk. We are not hostiles. Repeat."

_If they knew our language then they should be able to understand that._

The seconds ticked by as the two forces hung in space relative to each other for a full minute as the opposing side launched those fearsome Teardrop fighters.

"No response sir." The officer called from his station as the Admiral clenched his fist.

"_Come on"_

The DRADIS officer spoke the warning that he was not wanting to hear.

"Enemy ships are moving forward! Weapons appear to be going hot…" he was interrupted as pulse lasers lanced out from the Covenant ships to impact the Colonial task force.

Kaviss grabbed a handrail streaming curses as lasers cored into the flagship and the Colonial vessels.

"Hull breaches on decks twelve, twenty and three. Sealing. Armor on port flight pod down to fifty nine percent in eight sections! Minor damage to our bow!" the XO called out as readouts from his fleet scrolled on the tactical display.

The fleet had all incurred minor damage and one of his cruisers now had its main weaponry knocked out of action and sliced off, even the thicker hulls of the larger Battlestars took hits, though thankfully the sheer thickness helped somewhat, but Kaviss was still shocked at the power of those beams.

"Return fire! Full Slavo from our main batteries!" he roared.

Vipers and Raptors, moving to meet the oncoming threat from the Covenant fighters (and all having been told to not be shy about holding down their triggers to bring down those shields) scattered as the fleet fired a full salvo from their bow guns.

Nearly a hundred streaking orange projectiles followed by the ghostly contrails of eight dozen missiles tore a path through space towards the alien warships as energy began to coalesce on their lateral lines.

"Come on! Ready another salvo! Full nuclear launch order!" Kaviss shouted over the chaos of the _Prometheus's_ CIC as he watched the missiles and projectiles rocket towards the enemy on the DRADIS display.

Pulse lasers, switching to their fast tracking modes knocked the missiles out of the sky one by one as merely two of the anti ship missiles survived long enough to impact the glowing shields of the smaller Covenant vessels.

The Covenant warships were covered in silent electrical fire as the fleet's salvo impacted.

Kaviss couldn't help but watch awestruck as the rounds that didn't bounce off of the glowing energy blister were merely absorbed in a glowing blue display of energy that to him looked like a pebble being dropped in water as the shields of the alien vessels flashed with each hit.

The Covenant warships kept coming towards them as if nothing had even happened. A salvo that would have obliterated Seven Cylon War era Basestars had seemingly no effect.

As if to punctuate the point the wall of Vipers collided with the sixty four Covenant fighters, and nearly two dozen of the Colonial fighters immediately were speared by pulses of plasma and energy outside of their effective gun range and yet more explosions and streams of tracers and maneuvering thrusters lit up the skies.

The com traffic exploded as the orders and cries for support and screams of dying pilots filled the system before it was simply localized to the commanders.

He wanted to panic, as many of his officers and captains were now doing.

But he couldn't. Wiping the sweat from his brow he turned to his weapons officer as the mighty Battlestar vibrated under him.

"All ships are to focus fire on one target at a time. Designate the second Covenant escort as a target. Lets see if this can work."

"Aye sir. We can try and overwhelm their shielding system." The man replied as the realization donned on him.

"Enemy ships firing! Some sort of energy torpedo!" the DRADIS operator yelled as more Covenant Pulse lasers, retargeting the fleet, cored into the ships and shook the _Prometheus_.

Trying to listen to the latest damage reports Kaviss watched as the lateral lines on the alien vessels coalesced with blue energy and then released a blue streaking bolts of hellfire that bathed the screen in light before the viewer zoomed out.

"Have the fleet scatter! Loosen formation and all personnel to put on their respirators and oxygen masks! All ships prepare to vent atmosphere!" he cried out as the Covenant warships released seven streaking lances of plasma torpedoes, two from the destroyer, three from the Covenant cruiser analogue and one per each escort.

The Colonial warships all threw themselves onto random vectors as flak batteries, missiles and point defense systems tried in vain to stop the Plasma torpedoes.

The energy torpedoes cut across the distance in seconds and to Kaviss awe changed trajectory to strike the maneuvering warships.

The Valkyrie class Battlestar _Edana _shuttered as two of the balls of hellfire struck its starboard flight pod, punched through the armor and released thier fury inside. The pod burned and exploded outwards as atmosphere escaped to vacuum or ignited, in turn igniting fuel and ammunition as the 900 meter long warship began a tumble before correcting itself, now with a fifth of its mass aflame or outright destroyed and vaporized as the captain flushed out the atmosphere in the rest of the effective decks as bodies and equipment tumbled out into space.

The Bezerker Cruiser _Persephone _tumbled out of formation with its amidships rippling with fire and silent explosions as the Gunstar _Enid_ disappeared off of the DRADIS.

Reports flooded into the CIC.

"_Edana _sustained major damage, starboard flight pod destroyed!"

"_Enid_ is down with all hands!"

"_Persephone _ is out of action!"

"Battlestar _Nervan_ has moderate damage to lateral surface! Venting atmosphere!"

"Cruiser _Sifanti _ is not responding to hails! CIC down!"

"Battlestar_ Fostan _reports ventral batteries are gone or down! Venting affected areas!"

Kaviss was left in mute horror at the damage his fleet had incurred so quickly.

So far the battle had lasted four minutes since contact.

Down three of his ships and the forth now struggling to keep up he turned to his weapons officer.

"Retarget enemy main heavy. Fleet is to fire every main battery it can bring to bare on the enemy ship. Follow up by missile barrage from ALL ships including a full nuclear order. Nukes are to target the smaller vessels." He ordered as on the screen escape pods launched from thestricken Cruiser _Persephone_, its fires and explosions now dancing across its surface.

"How many missiles sir." The man asked as he turned to face the worn face of the Admiral.

Looking at him like he was crazy Kaviss grunted.

"Frak son. Fire every Gods Damned one we can."

"Targeting! We have a lock on! " his XO announced with wild excitement in his voice as the ship rocked with more weapons fire.

"Range, fifty four thousand and closing!"

Clenching his fists and praying that it would work Kaviss finally lost is usual composure that had followed him since his days as a Viper Pilot on board the _Galactica_.

"Fire everything! All ships fire at will and keep firing till you burn your guns out!"

The Colonial task force complied and fired everything it had just as the huge bow guns of the _Prometheus _spoke and every missile from its oversized missile tubes rocketed away.

Hundreds of missiles streamed from the Siegestars as nuclear missile after nuclear missile, many of them meant for orbital suppression, followed from the triangular wedge of the ships hulls; joining the others from the Battlestars and cruisers.

Hundreds of projectiles, some nearly as large as full sized cars, tore across the distance between the Colonials and their now hated foe and the batteries began to charge and fire again and again as fast as their magnetic rails and coils would charge and allow.

Kaviss watched as the Covenant ships again targeted his missiles with those accursed pulse lasers as they were felled by the dozens.

_We sure could have used those during the Cylon war_.

The projectiles got closer and closer as the remaining missiles closed the gap just as the largest Covenant warship's engines flashed blue and began to try and push the ship out of the way, at speeds so fast it was nearly successful.

But it was too late.

The shields on the Covenant cruiser flashed a violent blue as the projectiles and salvo of the faster remaining missiles, now under half of their original number, hit as one.

"_Come on"_ Kaviss breathed as he watched the viewer as the alien vessel's energy shields flashed brighter and brighter with each impact in a violent struggle between titanic forces played out in a fantastic duel.

One of the last salvos to be fired from the task force, fired from the _Prometheus_ herself, struck.

Kaviss felt like getting on his knees and praying, something he had yet to do in a long while as to his glee the shields collapsed , allowing two shells to tear craters in the hull before the alien warships disappeared in the sudden burst of light that were the surviving seventeen nuclear weapons.

The short lived stars unleashed their energies of radiation, gamma rays and infernos onto the alien warships as the more junior officers let loose cheers before Kaviss cut them off.

"Its not over. Charge weapons and as soon as you re-acquire them fire again. Give me a visual!" the admiral ordered as the DRADIS sent another sweep and the optical telescopes zoomed in.

The fire dissipated to show the twisted flaming wreckage that was the Covenant Cruiser, its hull split wide open with plasma and atmosphere venting into space as lifeless alien bodies tumbled out of it.

The crews of the ships present all screamed in glee at once as the DRADIS and viewers revealed the first images as the last of the firestorms died out, their lack of oxygen revealing that one of the smaller manta-ray escorts was damaged with visible hull damage and its odd alien thrusters sputtering.

"Finish it off!" Kavis roared as the fleet fired again, targeting the wounded vessel like sharks smelling blood just as the two other Covenant ships, relatively unscathed, surged forward and fired, the wounded vessel firing two of its still functioning pulse lasers; amazingly to the Admiral.

As Colonial railgun slugs tracked the wounded alien warship, splitting it wide open in the process, pulse lasers angrily fired in return holed the Colonial vessels and burned through armor setting ships ablaze and exposing crews to the cold unforgiving vacuum.

Kaviss watched as the wounded _Persephone _went nova as a trio of laser beams cored through its reactor before he felt his own ship be burned through on its bow, blowing out a deck and knocking out half of the dozen heavy bow batteries as smoke filled the CIC before the suppressors and air scrubbers kicked in.

"They are targeting one vessel at a time with their lasers!" his DRADIS operator called out coughing while Kaviss's XO grabbed a fire extinguisher to extinguish a burning console nearby.

The Siegestar _Gigas_ received the attention of no less than twelve heavy pulse laser beams that simply melted and ignited the hull and sliced through the vessel.

Whole decks blew out and decompressed as the huge missile batteries of the ship's ignited, blowing out huge flaming craters and debris from the ship before its reactor went critical.

The rest of the pulse lasers targeted the Berserker Class Cruiser _Firestar_ and the gravely wounded Battlestar _Edana_.

The _Firestar _spun out of formation with its engines nearly severed from the rest of the ship spewing silent explosions and atmosphere before two more pulse lasers got lucky and found the CIC and the main tylium bunker.

Th port side of the ship bulged outwards for a full second i a surreal display before the ship cracked in half, both parts spinning different directions.

Just at the same time the Battlestar _Enada,_ its damage control teams swamped with having to deal with the loss of an entire flight pod and struggling to keep up with the fleet, was hit by all of the remaining Pulse lasers from the Covenant Destroyer and its escort ship.

Twenty eight lasers, their targeting pinpoint accurate, sliced and burned through the already wrecked starboard side of the warship.

With little to stand in their way they burned through deck after deck, finding the main power systems and engine blocks.

Secondary explosions and decompression tore through the length of the ship as its engines flickered off before the ship lost power all together as uncontrolled fires and hull breaches, now with no way to be sealed as the crew was left floating in zero gravity and suddenly with little to no life support, turned the Battlestar into a lifeless hulk as the now dead ship drifted out of formation, spinning away.

Cursing and in no mood for bad news the Colonial Admiral watched as twelve of the remaining thirty three Alien fighers, their numbers reduced by half after taking down a full hundred Colonial Vipers and Raptors with them, streak towards his command.

"Activate CPDs!" Kaviss cooly stated as the Close In Point Defense Systems , a new addition to the Colonial arsenal, each 30mm high velocity mount had an independent DRADIS mount that allowed for much faster targeting and at longer ranges, as well as with a larger round with much higher velocity. The _Prometheus_ was the first Colonial warship to mount them.

Streams of penetrating 30mm rounds slammed into the streaking and wildly maneuvering teardrop fighters, covering their shields in fire as a miniature plasma torpedo formed at the fore of each fighter.

Two of the fighters lost their shields and turned into short lived fireballs just as the other ten released their plasma torpedoes and promptly pulled away from the line of fire.

"Brace for impact!" Kaviss called as the torpedoes hit the underside of the portside flight pod. Yet again the admiral found himself struggling to stand as the plasma lances hit the armor of the flight pod above the launch tubes and burned through the two feet of armor and set fires ranging throughout the hangers as a dozen unfortunate deckhands were sucked into the unforgiving void.

"Vent atmosphere in the flight pod! Now!" he ordered as he took another look at the latest DRADIS readouts from the Covenant ships who were preparing another salvo of Plasma torpedoes.

The chief engineering officer turned to him in protest.

"Sir but those people…"

"Stow it, they were ordered to have their oxygen masks on, do it now!"

Seconds later a gail of wind ripped through the hangars and docks as all atmosphere vented, killing all progress of the plasma just in time for the XO to shout a warning of the launch of three more Plasma Torpedoes, which cut through the vacuum at speeds far surpassing Colonial weapons, which flashed yet again and sent missiles and slugs towards the offending alien enemy.

Again the ships tried in vain to outmaneuver the lances of energy, but never the less the Columbia Class Battlestar _Hygeia _was all but obliterated as twin lances of plasma cored into the bowels of the warship while the second Gunstar in the task force was eviscerated in hellfire.

"_Hygeia_ is down and _Iona_ is off of the screens!"the crew shouted as the fleetwide coms began to be filled with requests to withdraw from the remaining ships.

"How are our fighters doing?" Kaviss snarled as he watched yet another salvo of missiles and now precious nukes be swatted away by laser pulses while dozens of the most powerful fusillades of Railgun fire in the Colonies bounced off of the Gods Damned energy shields.

"They held the Covenant fighters at bay but their casualties were enormous sir. We lost up to a hundred and ten Vipers and Raptors sir."

Slamming his fist on the tactical display and cracking it he cursed a stream of Virgonese curses so long that even he would have blushed.

"Pull them back. We trade two hundred pilots and a hundred planes for forty five of theirs?" he asked aloud as the exhausted and depleted Colonial fighters began to turn around back towards their motherships, almost half of which were now floating debris.

As another salvo of Pulse lasers bracketed his fleet and with missiles stockpiles almost gone their main batteries running low on slugs and power the situation was almost hopeless, despite their achievement of killing two of their ships.

It was nearly a five to one ratio advantage in favor of the enemy.

As if to punctuate that point the Cruiser nearest to the _Prometheus_ was holed by a broadside of laser fire from the Covenant ships who were maneuvering to put their much faster ships outside of their weapons' ranges, where they were undoubtedly going to sit and pick them off at ranges in excess of a staggering 70,000 kilometers.

Half of his ship's railgun fire was being dodge already it was only going to become more useless.

"All units prepare to pull out, we cant take this anymore." He ordered just as a new DRADIS contact appeared on the screen, long enough to grab his attention, and fear.

"What is the reading of the new…" he didn't get to finish his answer as two suns enveloped the Covenant escort ship.

The three hundred meter manta ray warship all but disappeared from the screens as the fire and the heat of a point blank detonation enveloped it.

"The Stealthstars!" he all but shouted in realization as the crew all watched the screens.

"They must have survived and shadowed them. I forgot we loaded them with nukes." His XO stated a matter of factly as the firestorms revealed the badly wounded and vulnerable alien escort.

"Finish it off! All ships target the lone Heavy! Use up your nuclear stores and missile racks!"

Again hundreds of magnetically accelerated slugs and missiles stitched lines across space from the now emboldened Colonials.

The Covenant destroyer raced to put itself between the Colonial weapons and its wounded breatheren, firing a Plasma torpedo in kind and causing yet more damage to the _Prometheus_ and the Mercury Battlestar _Isis_ with a fusillade of pulse lasers, stitching their hulls with energy.

The plasma torpedo, traveling much faster than the Colonial weapons found the CIC of the Battlestar _Fostam, _just as the heavy railguns tore into the side of the Covenant Light Cruiser.

Though much less powerful than their UNSC counterparts by an order of magnitude, it still was more than enough when a half dozen heavy rounds from the Battlestars and a dozen more from the lighter Cruisers ripped through its lighter hull, gutting it from stem to stern.

As the lifeless ships from the opposing sides began their slow lifeless tumbles dozens of missiles, two nukes and several dozen salvos of Colonial fire hit the now alone Covenant destroyer, enveloping it in fire before the ship's pulse lasers could be retasked to interception.

The ship reappeared with two visible hull breaches and its shields collapsing with a spark.

Admiral Kaviss's heart almost leapt into his throat.

"Fire everything you have left!"

Many of the other commanders had already done so as the Covenant destroyer, its shields offline and engines damaged, tried in vain to maneuver away from the human vessels, itself now the prey.

To Kaviss's shock the warship charged headlong into the fire, firing every last weapon it had as Colonial slugs tore rents in its hull as yet more bounced off of its thick hide.

The Siegestar _Kobol's Gleaming_ , its missile supplies exhausted went up as lasers cored through it just as the hellish energy of another torpedo began to form on the lateral surface of the alien vessel.

"Its trying to take us down with it." The admiral realized as the already damaged port side flight pod was gutted by a trio of lasers burrowing through the hull, knocking him to his back as he got up.

And just in time to see the alien vessel open up a strange portal of light with a dazzling amount of strange readings and energies lighting up the DRADIS of the task force.

"It's a Slipspace portal! Just like the USNC use!" the senior officer announced.

Kaviss could care less, what he was focused on as the Covenant warship, its hull now pitted and scarred, but more or less intact from Colonial firepower; was the last plasma torpedo that lanced away from the ship and cut its way toward the _Prometheus_.

"Evasive! All crew brace for impact!" Kaviss called out for as much good as he knew it would do.

He was as good as dead.

"_We got it sir!"_ the captain of the wounded Berserker Cruiser _Troy_ announced over the coms as the ship, wounded earlier in the battle by pulse lasers knocking out half of its weapons systems and FTL put its bloodied self in front of the _Prometheus_ with only a couple of miles to spare.

Racing to for the headset Kaviss was not fast enough to contact the heroic captain and his crew as the lance of hellfire struck the cruiser directly amidships.

As lifepods tore away from the doomed vessel the plasma tore through the ship; eviscerating it as the ship broke in two flaming halves trailing debris.

The radio went dead just as fast as it had come alive.

The Covenant ship, pleased with its kill, retreated into the dazzling whirling pool of slipspace.

Silence.

That was what reigned on the three surviving Battlestars, four Cruisers and the lone Siegestar.

They were damaged in some spots beyond recognition and all but exhausted on all ammo save for their point defenses.

Looking through the viewer at the tumbling debris that once had been twelve proud Colonial warships filled with thousands of people, brave men and women Kaviss turned to the rest of the CIC, all but silent and not celebrating the victory.

He his worn eyes were not full of fury anymore.

"Send out the rescue ships."


	9. Chapter 9

**For any perspective on any stations and ships I mention, such as Tauron's Defense headquarters, go to google Images and type in ships of the Colonial fleet by ICE DRAGON and type in Tauron Defense Headquarters by Ice Dragon. He has pretty good renders of ships and stations mentioned in every Fan fiction and canon source, including his own creative designs. **

_**Picon Orbit**_

_**Five Days Post Battle of Leonis.**_

"_As you can all see here a fleet of eight Colonial Defense Forces warships, including three Battlestars, four Cruisers and a Missile Cruiser, all jumped into a high orbit past the defense perimeter of Picon's moon and Fleet Command's Anchorage. From accounts and the few grainy images sent in by our viewers these warships, all of them, appeared to have been heavily damaged. What is more troubling is the accounts that a task force of some twenty warship's some of which are believed to be the very ships witnessed; departed Picon five days ago on an unannounced deployment. These recent developments may coincide with the recent wave of missing ships on the Line and in adjoining sectors outside of the Colonies. The military is not speaking at this time, but one could guess that this may be a wave of attacks tied to the UNSC and the supposed Thirteenth Tribe , however more alarming is the possibility of Cylon activity or even an unknown cause for these events. This is Jan Aderns reporting from Picon, back to you Tom."_

Adar nearly put his fist through the flat panel screen in front of him and resisted the urge to crumple the fragile remote in his hands, instead throwing it across his executive cabin at the center of Colonial One as the President of the Colonies took a deep breath and sat down at his desk.

"Frakking press."

Mumbling he wished he had a drink of his family's wine. Keeping secrets in a democracy with a free press was hard, nearly nigh impossible, something he usually praised but in light of recent events made his life even more nightmarish.

Pulling up the report that had caused him to be awoken in the middle of the night and sent him whisked away to the top secret Military Command Station Zero, he slumped into his seat.

Station Zero was a huge facility known only to the Joint Chiefs, the Admiralty board and Adar and a few Cabinet members of his administration. So secret that its building had been carried out under the guise of several projects with its funding hidden away under parts of other government projects.

Station Zero was the most sensitive of all the facilities under control of the CDF. Although the task of running the operations of the Colonial Fleet was carried out at Picon Command and the other twelve separate Defense Headquarter station above each colony, the true inner workings of the Fleet and its assorted Secret and even public projects were carried out here.

Built into one of the larger asteroids that joined others and the four moons that orbited Caprica's and Gemenon's huge gravity well created by the mutual orbit of the two colonies orbit around their central gravitational baycenter, the asteroid had been mined out long ago of all its natural resources, and was but a navigational marker and hazard that the throngs of civilian craft avoided, but was close enough that craft coming and going wouldn't arose suspicion.

As such the still incredibly thick iron chunk of rock that had been almost conveniently hollowed out the Colonial Defense Forces and Colonial Intelligence had come in and carefully built the station under the guise of a research station.

The only visible part of the base on the surface of the asteroid was the small listening post which kept up the guise of a civilian outpost but also served the purpose of holding the an extremely large DRADIS array and the largest most sophisticated Laser communications system ever created, much less designed.

This allowed the station to act as a command and control center for the entire Colonial fleet in the system while remaining perfectly invisible to listening devices and thus unknown. To compensate for the constant movement of the planets and ships, as well as the vast distances even with the speed of light, an array of reflective dishes and small satellites placed at the system's and planet's Lagragian points allowed for communication even around planets and obstacles, and for a constant link with Picon Command. Communication with the rest of the Colonies was dealt with through the same FTL currier system that all the colonies used, except on a smaller and stealthier platform with automated drones.

"_Command Zero docking, activating Docking procedures, Opening Bay doors. Welcome to Fleet Command Colonial One."_ The dockmaster announced as one side of the chunk of rock that was flattened slit apart to reveal huge camouflaged bay doors that opened into a gigantic bay capable of fitting two 800 meter Berserker class cruisers side by side, and a titanic amount of support facilities capable of acting as a full fledged dry dock for any number of craft.

One part of the bay was full with the Colonial Fleet's latest toy.

Stretching to three hundred meters the black clad form of the Colonies' first fully operational Stealth Cruiser, a heavily modified Glaive electronic warfare ship whose hull was covered in a stealth coating and fitted with baffles and angular hull plating in critical areas , sat in the bay as its systems were being completed in secret as the final launch checks were being completed.

Adar had by then moved to the front of the ship and stood behind the two pilots in the cockpit as the president looked into the facility as the comparatively tiny ship slipped through the bay doors which shut with amazing speed given their size.

Adar was still taken aback every time he visited the place as the ship's airlocks gave a dull thud as they latched onto the docking teather.

Adar wasted no time to move to the airlock, waiting for the clamps to seal as the green light lit for pressurization, the president tapping his foot in anticipation.

Opening the airlock himself and not waiting for the Colonial Officers and Marines on the other side, who all saluted and snapped to in surprise in return as the President walked straight down the oversized docking tube towards the man he wanted to see.

"Admiral Nagala. A pleasure to meet you." He spoke as the Admiral shook his hand and the two got the pleasantries out of the way.

Minutes later Adar and Nagala made their way to the heart of the operation, the gigantic command center which appeared more like a mission control center of old pre-unification days as most of the cavernous walls were dominated by four towering viewscreens that gave constant readouts of the Colonial fleet and the ships in the system. The information was provided courtesy of the DRADIS arrays system wide and the huge array on Picon's moon feeding them information.

The myrad of brightly lit consoles were all occupied as men and women of Colonial Intelligence and the Colonial Fleet all glanced up as the President and Nagala walked past, making their way to the briefing room perched above.

Adar took his seat as the other three four Admiral's present along with Nagala, took their seats at the ovalish table and got straight to the point.

"Admiral Kaviss, what is the situation? Don't be shy, I need to know everything."

Kaviss, the sixty five year old admiral seemed to snarl as he answered, his brown eyes staring right into his as his face scowled.

"Well Mr. President, to put it simply, frakked like some Caprican City street whore."

The other Admiral shifted in their seats uncomfortably as Adar, though taken aback by the bluntness, knew that Kaviss's character proceeded him.

"What would happen if they were to jump into the Colonies?"

The Admiral snorted in reply before Nagala had the chance to cut in, "How many ships would we lose taking about ten of the Frakkers out is the real question you mean."

"Sir we can handle their smaller escort ships, but even those can potentially and absolutely damage even a Battlestar with a direct hit with their energy torpedoes. Their pulse lasers absolutely cored through layers of our ship's armor with multiple salvos of pulses even on the _Battlestars_, and the lighter warships were simply deathtraps when fighting those things. When we fight them we cannot engage them with anything less than a Cruiser in battle with the exception of the Siegestars thanks to their missiles and nukes. However given the firepower of these _Covenant _ warships we could possibly only take their lightest escort one on one, and that would be with a Battlestar."

Adar cringed as that statistic.

Nagala paused to take a breath as he continued, "It takes massed and concentrated firepower hitting at the same time or continually to take down their energy shields, and from what we have seen those shields are only more powerful the larger the ship; it took a full salvo from the entire task force to drop or overload the shields and kill a Battlestar sized warship and a further seventeen nuclear missiles to accomplish that. If they have anything as large as a _Mercury_ I could only imagine the amount of firepower we would have to hit it with."

Adar nodded, he had watched the battle footage over and over and still could not believe the amount of firepower it took to bring one of those monsters down, and how easily their weapons cleaved through Colonial ships.

"Their fighters are a similar deal. They are incredibly fast, almost achieving the same velocities we witnessed the Earther fighters pulling mind you; are about the size of three Vipers yet they have great agility to boot. They also can engage outside of our Viper's effective gunrange and one shot them with their energy cannons. Our Vipers can only achieve an effective missile lock once we have overloaded their shields, also with continuous fire, about a full three or four seconds worth."

"Gods, that's almost an eighth of a Viper's ammo!"

Nagala nodded solemly.

"Our Viper pilots thankfully adapted and our planes are more agile but they are still totally outclassed, one of these Teardrops can take out three of ours for every one of theirs and they are a potent threat against our ships. I would suggest our ships abandoning the use of wide field Flak and focus of concentrated firepower, our Flak will simply bounce off of their shields unless you hit them directly." He finished as Adar interjected.

"How can we best combat them?" the president asked as the other Admirals looked at him puzzled, not expecting the question.

"Well given the known data we have, we are contemplating using in system jumps to avoid their plasma weaponry, but we all know that formations of ships would be scattered, leaving them open for attack. We are considering giving orders to ships that would have them keep their FTL's spooled up at all times so they may jump away if they are about to be struck by those Plasma torpedoes , but they cannot immediately jump back into formation so we loose the provided firepower either way for a good period of time." Nagala finished as Kaviss spoke up as the older man chewed on a cigar, Adar having to ignore the smoke as best he could.

"What about having some of our Gunstars or Siegestars, ships that carry firepower above their weight but have weak armor plating, be crewed with the minimal amount of crews necessary and jump as close as they can get to those ships and unload on them for as long as they can?. We could possibly disable or knock out one of their ships before they are destroyed, and if they are we lose the minimal amount of lives and we loose a ship that we can easily replace and is not as damaging a loss as a Battlestar or Cruiser. Our main problem is that we have to close to engage at range, which for us is much less than them, simply jumping in to point blank range and launching a swarm of nukes before they can zap them with their lasers would be the most effective way to fight them."

One of the other admirals, Admiral Peter Corman, spoke up.

"Are you suggesting that we trade the lives of Colonial men and women for a chance to hit the enemy?" He said accusingly.

Kaviss turned and quickly sniped back, "If you were there you would understand just how dire a situation this is. They WILL come back and they will find the Colonies. All of our ships need to be on high alert. Mr. President." Kaviss finished as Adar made up his mind.

"Inform all of our ships to be on high alert and all shore leaves suspended. I want all of our ships back from the Line and a suspension of all traffic not going directly to and from the colonies. All armed forces under the Colonial Defense Forces commands are to go to high alert. Also alert all Planetary militias and security forces under the Articles of Colonization, If the Covenant do appear in any of the home systems all assests are to immediately go to Condition One."

"Do we really want to reveal their existence? The societal impacts would…"

Adar cut the Admiral off , " For all they will know it could be the Cylons. However all of Colonial Intelligence and the Admiralty will be informed, and as well as how to fight them. The societal impact wont matter if the threat is as bad as you say it is, and considering all we have been through the past couple of months people cant get any more worried and restless."

_**UNSC Wink of An Eye**_

_**Helios Alpha Star System**_

_**Cyrannus Star Cluster**_

_**Six Days Later**_

Two Slipspace ruptures lit up the uninhabited space near the fringes of the Helios Alpha star cluster near the gas giant of Zeus and its seventy four moons.

Separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers, two UNSC Prowlers exited the spacial distortions and promptly engaged their stealth systems.

"Status Report." Commander Branson ordered as soon as the active camouflage systems engaged and the uncomfortable shift into realspace passed and the officers in the ovalish CIC all promptly went about their duties with well oiled professionalism.

"We have arrived at our destination. Laser link established with _Red Horse. _ _Red Horse _is holding position two hundred and thirty eight thousand kilometers from our position. Activating sensors." Fallon replied as the AI went about its tasks in milliseconds.

Branson looked out of the forward viewscreen at the huge orange gas giant that dominated his line of sight, his eyes managing to make out two larger natural satellites from the dozens of nearly incomprehensible chunks of rock and debris.

"Scan complete. We are in the system encountered by the _Prophesy_, near the large Gas giant named by the Colonials as Zeus. All scans and readouts match the planets and worlds from the _Prophesy's_ sensor logs. I find the formation of this system to be quite fascinating. Most of these worlds lie in the habitable zone of the system's star, which is quite a bit larger than most encountered by the UNSC, as many of our worlds and colonies required at least some form of Terraforming."

Branson nodded , uncaringly , as he got down to business.

"Order the _Red Horse _to take up its position near the planets of Caprica and Gemenon, the second and third primaries. We will make best speed towards the first primary colony called Picon and begin monitoring operations, I want all our systems running as dark as they can. What is our ETA to our targets at our best speed Lieutenant Haverson?"

The helmsman answered without turning in his station as the man began the process of a long burn of the ship's Fusion engines, accelerating the ship to flank speed before shutting them down and reactivating the cloaking field.

"Best speed nine hours sir. I am going to slingshot us around the gas giant to bring it down to about eight and bring us around the asteroid belt as much as we can. _Red Horse _will enter at a more oblique angle to compensate."

Nodding as he sat down he watched as the readouts of Colonial ships and outposts on the many moons orbiting the gas giant went about their business, completely unaware as the two stealth ships passed right by a Colonial Defense Forces patrol of eight lighter warships and Vipers.

_** Deep Space**_

_** Second Fleet of Righteous Fury**_

_** Two Weeks Post- Battle of Leonis**_

Shipmaster Quno grinned as he looked out at the assembled fleet that seemingly encircled his small destroyer, now freshly repaired from the recent battle with the lesser Colonial humans.

Thirty six Covenant warships hung in close formation , forming a spherical formation around the flagship, the sleek and deadly Reverence Class Grand Cruiser _Incorruptible _commanded by Fleet Master Tano 'Inanraree, its graceful lines only interrupted by dozens of laser emmitters, secondary plasma cannons, seven laterally mounted Plasma Turrets, and two energy projectors.

Joining the Three kilometer flagship were seven CCS class Battlecruisers a followed closely by four RPV Class Carriers that were loading up their wings of deadly Seraph starfighters.

Complementing them and acting as dedicated escorts were the looming forms of three fifteen hundred meter long RPV Class Heavy destroyers which were essentially much larger versions of Shipmaster Quno's own destroyer. Rounding up the fleet were two smaller CCR Class cruisers like the one the Colonial humans had managed to destroy, four regular destroyers including the _Far Sight Lost_; six frigates, five Corvettes and a further four CRS Class Light Cruisers.

The lights of the ships and the smaller wings of Seraphs that formed a protective bubble around them seemed to form a globe of lights as Quno went back to the task at hand.

His ship had been heavily damaged at the last battle with the lesser humans, but mostly the hull breaches that had tore into the hull were patched, reminding him further of just how much less powerful these _Colonial _humans were than the accursed UNSC humans.

_Still diseased vermin_

At the fore of the bridge Quno's sensor officer turned to him, a look of excitement and a lack of patience clear in his demeanor.

"Sir Fleetmaster Tano is hailing."

Moving to his seat as his bulk and weight shifted to the hover chair, Quno nodded. " On screen."

The viewscreen that dominated the cavern of the bridge shifted to show the Fleetmaster, the elder Zealot's white armor adorned with marks and scars from his many great battles against the enemies of the Covenant.

"_Greetings Shipmaster. The fleet is ready to jump. I trust that your ship is ready for glorious battle?"_

Nodding but dipping his head remembering his withdrawal from the previous battle with the much larger Colonial fleet that had been encountered.

"Yes fleetmaster, me and my crew wish to redeem our honor and our ship is ready for combat."

The image flickered for a second from interference as the Admiral briefly glanced off of the camera as the flagship's crew gave a status report that all of the singleships were docked.

"_Fear not, for you shall soon get the chance. The brief sweep we were able to get from our sensors and the handful of scoutships we have determined that there is a major world in the system that our probe was able to scout out. The Hierarchy refuses to give us many more ships, as they are focused on yet another assault on the world of Harvest and finding more worlds of these UNSC humans, an ultimately their homeworld. We will be jumping shortly."_

"Yes fleetmaster. I assure you that my ship and crew are committed to the fight."

The fleetmaster nodded as the screen flickered off and the turned to the bridge crew.

"It is time for us to redeem ourselves. Our weapons demand blood."

Five minutes later thirty seven Covenant warships opened slipspace ruptures, and quickly disappeared into the swirling mass of dimensional space.

_**Reach**_

"Contact right! Elite!" Linda shouted through the com link as the two other Spartans abruptly pivoted their weapons onto the new threat.

"Affirmative." Kurt coolly replied as the sights of his BR86 Gauss Rifle swept onto the new threat, a roaring Covenant Elite that spun around the corner at the end of the corridor thirty meters away.

Kurt's superhuman reflexes put the sights of the Gauss Rifle on the head of the roaring alien, just as a plasma bolt fired from the enemy's Plasma repeater flew past.

Kurt's eyes didn't even stray from the target as his training and enhanced senses let him shift most of his armored body to the side away from the bolt of hellfire in a blur of superhuman speed, keeping his sights on target all at the same time.

The Elite Major didn't have a chance as his shields winked out from a three round burst of 4mm magnetically accelerated rounds, the alien roaring in surprise as his fire failed to fell the human.

Hardly a second later another roar of three four millimeter hypersonic slugs of tungsten removed its head in a spray of gore.

"Clear right!" Kurt announced as he spun around to face the other threat his threat sensors marked in red as John and Linda dispatched another three Covenant elites, this time jet troopers in similar rapid fashions.

The Spartans moved up supporting each other as a pack of screaming Grunts were felled and a Phalanx of shielded Jackals shattered under the inhuman hail and roar of accurate fire.

"Move up, switch to the Mike." John announced as the trio exited the building to yet another rooftop of a skyscraper, one among many whom were now shattered husks of a war torn city.

Kurt acknowledged as he strapped his Gauss Battle Rifle to his back's magnetic strips and pulled the M-43 Microwave Incendiary Klystron Emitter, better known as a Mike, off of his back all the while as he and the three Spartans ran to the edge of the building at superhuman speeds.

Kurt briefly glanced at the surrounding cityscape- all but torn apart in the ongoing hell of battle as a flaming UNSC Skyhawk flew but a mile past and crashed into a building as a trio of heavy plasma pulses from a flight of Banshees tore into it.

"There is our extraction point." John announced with his normal unemotional calm during battle as Kurt's helmet's HUD outlined the glowing orange arrow on the roof of the building next to them and twenty floors taller, just as the edge of the roof came nearer and the three leapt off of the roof with one last push from their augmented muscles and into empty space.

With a thought and his neural uplink Kurt activated the MJOLNIR's thruster pack, the two concealed thrusters popping out of the back of his armor and lifting the 800 pound super soldier and flinging him upwards.

The countdown that had been on the side of his field of vision ticked down to zero as the three accelerated and climbed.

A thunderous crack was all that Kurt heard as heat and flame tried to lap at him as the building they had just jumped from exploded and came crashing down on a controlled path.

Right onto the Scarab dominating the huge boulevard a thousand feet below that was assaulting a UNSC armored brigade, the untold amount of debris crushing the Covenant assault walker instantly.

John, Linda and Kurt neared the top floors of the adjoining tower just as a line of Covenant soldiers, Jackals and Elites popped from cover and sent a hail of plasma and fire at them.

Kurt and the others rolled out of the way and dodged the fire while still climbing, as Kurt readied his weapon.

Just eclipsing the edge of the roof Kurt opened up as he kept climbing, slowing his speed but pivoting to the right and out of a line of enemy fire.

A searing line of heat ignited the air in a laser like beam as a huge amount of accelerated Microwaves, condensed and powered into the kilowatts, instantly hit the line of Covenant as Kurt held the trigger down and the sights on each individual alien for two seconds.

Grunts, Elites and Jackals literally burst into flames from the _inside_ as the microwaves ignited their internal liquids and boiled them from the inside, wholly bypassing shields and finding open spaces in armor.

The line of alien soldiers literally boiled away as the trio landed on the top of the roof, the burning carcasses simmering around them as John and Linda finished the remainders off with bursts from their rifles.

_END SIMULATION_

Kurts eyed struggled to compensate as the virtual world gave way to reality and the visceral sounds of a battle and a devastated simulated city gave way to the brightly lit interior of ONI Castle base's simulation chamber.

Shaking his head he stepped out of the individual pod as Linda and John did the same, Kurt scratching his neck where his neural uplink had unplugged from the machine.

"Good call on equipping the Mike, Ive never really been a fan of the weapon, too fragile for me though." John spoke as he disconnected himself from his own simulator.

Kurt was about to speak before the door at the far end of the simulator lined room opened, revealing the familiar form of Dr. Catherine Halsey, wearing her ever familiar lab coat and carrying her flexipad, tapping away at it as she walked towards the trio while dodging several robotic technicians working on installing a new simulator.

"Good job Spartans. I must say you are coming to take a liking to the new built in thruster packs, you have allowed for more flexible tactical options." She spoke as she changed her gaze to the assembled supersoldiers, all of whom struck a typical salute.

Halsey sighed, "At ease Spartans, Im not an Admiral."

John looked at Kurt for a second, as if checking with his subordinate to see it if it was okay.

Linda remained quiet.

"Yes ma'am" Kurt and John spoke at once, glancing at each other as the two stole a quick flash of amusement as the three dropped their salutes, still standing straight.

Halsey let loose a rare grin as she continued.

"I want you and the others here to get as much training with those new thruster packs as you can. Word is you will be shipping back out to the front lines soon, this time against suspected Innie activity still trying to make a name for themselves at Venzia."

Kurt frowned as John and Linda nodded, the name of the world immediately ringing a sour note.

Halsey continued, "You would think that after how many times we put down the rebels there and how many soldiers that damn world has patrolling it and loosing their right to self govern after the Rebellion War they would learn that terrorism gets them now where. We believe that they have been smuggling captured Covenant small arms and selling them on the black market, how the hell they got them you and Blue team are going to find out."

"Yes ma'am, when are we going against the Covenant again?" Kurt asked as he again scratched his now irritated neural implant.

"I am not privy to that information but we do know that Cole's victory set them back a bit and the Admiralty is beginning to ponder the notion of evacuating the outer most colonies that are most in danger, trying to defend all of those tiny outposts is just sapping resources. But Cole and Admiral Stanforth's fleets will be deploying to Harvest soon, we suspect that tying up as many Covenant as we can there would help keep them out of the rest of the colonies and away from the Inner Colonies. Plus they keep making small attacks on our forces there that an attack must be immanent…"

"And Cole wants to by time and let them waste resources over a lost world, plus we can really be on the offense." John finished as Halsey nodded as she placed her data pad in her labcoat.

"I am going to run some more tests you all can head to the range or, heaven forbid enjoy a few hours off."

"Yes ma'am" John spoke for the group as the trio soon made their way back to their quarters.

Halsey waited for the door to close as she pulled the data pad out of her pocket and activated it, reviewing the psychological readouts of Kurt during the latest round of simulations.

_After Kurt's fight with the Colonials she couldn't have_ _one of her Spartans hesitating to kill a fellow human, something she was always worried about now with years of fighting the Covenant, and something she was sure she would be for years to come._

_**Colonial Heavy 231**_

Adriane Fellows sighed as the malfunctioning thruster light went off again, causing the Tauron captain to curse and throw her pen at the control panel in a vain attempt to relieve her mixture of boredom and stress.

"Piece of shit!" Adriane bellowed as her co-pilot , a long time friend from the agrarian colony of Aerleron , Danson Leesan , looked over at her with a loom of benign amusement.

"You really do hate the Picon run don't you ?" Leesan asked with a look of bemeausment as he took his seat next to her.

Leesan's grin only grew bigger when he received the look of death from Adriane.

"Frak off, I only agreed to haul freight for the fleet cause my son's college is now requiring him to study on Canceron for a tri-mester. Like I they really needed to make a requirement to study off world." She replied as she fiddled with a bag of chips stuffed into the recesses of the cockpit controls.

Her co-pilot nodded as he did a check on the DRADIS while she settled in and watched the tiny orb of Tauron slowly grow larger in the windscreen.

"We are all clear for about a couple thousand kilometers, nothing more than a couple of other freighters and a small Tauron Space Guard patrol ship. We should be nearing the outer most of the gravity well of Tauron soon, about two hours."

Adriane nodded as she yawned, the slow pace of most civilian ships making their runs in between the planets of the Colonies' systems taking at times a day.

"So what do you think about all of this crap going on along the borders? I mean I heard our company lost a freighter in Leonis a week ago, and they are not saying a thing." The man talked away as she sighed.

"Lets just say I am glad that all I do is in system runs. Ive seen the fleet not only double its ships and defenses but pull out some ships that I saw as a child, some from the war I think Frak our counterparts around Gemonon swear they saw a couple of Viper Mk. II's flying about. All I know is it cant be good."

Her partner nodded in agreement, " Mk II's? Frak me. The news is saying it might be the Earthers, but the military apartently acknowledged that they are less worried about them starting a fight again, you think the Cylons?"

"I don't know what to think about the Thirteenth tribe, Hades their existence is a bombshell alone, but to think that those rumors of how two of their ships trashed what was sent against them are true then it makes you wonder. Many from my temple thankfully are not freaking the frak out like others are. I mean think about it. What if what they supposedly said is true? The impliations? I mean rumors filtered out from the _Perseus _that they claim to control dozens of not just worlds, but star systems filled with them."

She paused as she noticed the small rise in ambient readouts she was getting a couple of thousand kilometers out before continuing.

"But if it is the Cylons why would the military keep it all hush hush? We all know about them and wouldn't it be more prudent to have the population mobilized?"

She thought aloud as the readout that had previously stole her attention began to give a blaring warning as a huge DRADIS contact began to overwhelm her sensors.

"What the frak?..."

Adriane fellows never got to finish her statement as the inexplicable forces of trans dimensional space tore open right on top of the tiny ship.

Energies that briefly escaped and survived for several seconds in real space dramatically warped space and induced gravity and tears in a relatively small area of space that Adriane Fellows and her co-pilot had the misfortune of occupying at the wrong time.

The Colonial freighter was simply torn apart by the point blank exit opening of a Slipspace rupture as dozens more like it tore open nearby, out of which came a fleet of Covenant warships.

The small Tauron defense ship, operated separate from the Colonial Fleet could only watch helplessly as the sweeping sea creature like form of a CCS Battlecruiser emerged from slipspace, its own form casting a shadow on it before a brief sweep from its pulse lasers sliced the ship open as all of the civilian ships in the area were simply erased.

The only clue that something was wrong was the frantic radio message and laser communication that was sent to the Tauron Defense HQ, and immediately sent to all commands and to Picon.

The thirty six alien vessels, all of them successful in their transition to realspace, powered up their repulse engines and began their dreadful progress towards the Colony of Tauron.

_**Tauron Defense Headquarters**_

"Optical telescopes are zooming in now we have an image on screen!" the young woman , a lieutenant, called out as Admiral Corman narrowed his eyes on the screen.

The ships on the screen that dominated the cavern of the station's Control Center were all too familiar, for several seconds he hoped it was the Cylons.

But it was not to be.

"Is it the Thirteenth Tribe?" he heard several officers ask aloud as he cleared his throat.

"I want this image dispatched to ALL commands. I want every ship we got to Condition One now and to form a defensive line just past the second Lagrangian point of Mines." He ordered, referring to the large ringed moon of Tauron as icons of friendly ships sluggishly moved into position, preparing to put themselves in between the alarmingly fast moving Covenant fleet and Tauron.

"All defenses are to be activated and you are to target once in range."

Men and women looked at him incredulously as he turned to the senior officer.

"Send the Orange Band information packet to all ships and commanders. And give me a fleet wide broadcast."

The Canceron native nodded, knowing just what that meant having been privy to the briefing that his superior had been given a week ago.

"You are on. Sir." His XO nodded as Corman picked up the handset and began the task of informing the men and women who were now going to be in the fight of their lives, who they were fighting and why.

"Colonial warriors. Men and Women of the Fleet and all branches….."

He continued as the force of some seventy ships, the dedicated defenses for the colony , all redlined their engines and thrusters and arrayed themselves in front of the gigantic modularized form of Tauron's defense Headquarters as more ships from the world's cluttered orbit raced to catch up.

Civilian ships, all struggling to clear the skies, all listened in shock as their channels picked up the very open frequency.

Sirens not used since the Cylon war began to blare throughout cities across Tauron as civilians began to panic and the emergency channels and Breaking news headlines broke in to every scheduled programming.

Across the various military bases warplanes taxied for liftoff as Vipers and their assorted variants and assault ships took the skies, making for orbit.

"…..we don't know why they are attacking, but we do know that they are at war with Earth, its reported Colonies and its defense forces, the UNSC. The only reason that even the Earthers know, who have supposedly been at war with them for several years now, told was because they were simply human. Our attempts at talking to them went unheard, and we were forced to fight them, winning at a great cost in Leonis…."

Corman paused as the eerie silence that now reigned in the CIC made him breath.

He could feel his heart in his throat as the muted stares of his men and women bored holes in him.

They needed a driving force of encouragement.

The sixty year old Admiral cleared his raspy throat as he himself said a prayer.

"We WILL defend our homes to the very last bullet, the very last warrior and the very last ship! The gods are on our side and these demons will die! SO SAY WE ALL!"

Minutes later throughout the various Battlestars, Cruisers, Gunstars, Vipers and other assorted warships, this cry reverberated as the Covenant Fleet passed the two hundred thousand kilometer mark, their huge ships eclipsing the edge of the curve of Tauron's moon as the alien warships bored down on the Colonial fleet.

"So say we all." Admiral Corman whispered to himself as the two lines of combatants neared each other.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Colonial Defense Forces – Minos- Tauron Lagrangian Point Three **_

_**Vanir Class Commandstar**_

_**CDF Atlas**_

"_Admiral Sterns, you have full command of the fleet in this sector. I will be heading the defenses of Tauron and the station, we should be receiving reinforcements in about an hour…."_

The radio feed cut out as Admiral Corman briefly acknowledged yet another alert in the command center of the huge Tauron Defense Station before returning.

" _I am sending you all of our available reserves and pulling back anything else that was in a low orbit. Gods speed."_ The tinny voice of Admiral Corman faded away as the line cut.

Admiral Vellena Sterns frowned as she gripped the handset for a second before setting it down, looking around at the men and women under her command as they went about their duties with professionalism that made her proud.

The forty four year old Caprican turned to the main display as the icons of her seventy eight and growing ships along with their Vipers as they formed a protective screen around the flagship. The angry red icons of the enemy ships formed a loose wedge as they launched their dreaded fighters.

Sterns had until an hour ago, had problems taking the sealed orders and briefing seriously that she had received a week ago, until now.

The whole existence of honest to Gods aliens had been a shock to the core of her more traditional Leoni religious beliefs, but seeing them on the optical screens and the DRADIS more than proved the point.

Having read on the capabilities of these _Covenant_ ships she knew that it would take everything at her disposal to fight them, but she still had her doubts on the claimed energy shields and how easily their weapons defeated Colonial defenses. But she cast them aside as Admiral Corman had insisted that despite her having more than twice as many ships it still was not certain the outcome, something that managed to strike home.

"Enemy ships are nearing 90,000 kilometers sir! Waves of fighter craft are launching and coming in very fast! Our Vipers are moving to intercept." Her DRADIS officer, Francis Denota , called out.

"They are probing our defenses. Re-affirm to all pilots that they are to use concentrated fire and to avoid head on engagement with those things, according to reports. Tell them not to be shy about holding down their triggers to take them down." Sterns ordered as she paced the fore of the huge command center, looking out from the bridge windows, one of the most unique things about her flagship, at the twinkling cluster of blue lights and orange flashes that were the alien's fighters and her own ships flickered in the untold expanse.

The _Atlas_ was one of the few Commandstars in the Colonial Defense Forces fleet. A dedicated command and control ship, its huge array of sensors coupled with oversized command and control centers and the largest DRADIS array fitted to a space going vessel made the ship perfect at commanding large fleets, defenses and even planetary assaults. Stretching to just shy of a thousand meters in length, its unique twin hulled design with a large connecting engine block and central command section made the Commandstars wholly unique among Colonial ships. However it was not meant for direct combat by any means, it was only armed with a motley array of nuclear and conventional anti ship missile tubes and most of the space that was left had been used giving the ship an incredible amount of point defenses, including the new CPD systems, and anti fighter missiles. However with the emergence of the latest Mercury Battlestars and Prometheus Class Battlestars, coupled with advances in Laser communications, the Commandstars were rapidly being deemed unnecessary. As such the _Atlas _was one of four left in the fleet.

Sterns watched as the Covenant fighters , advanced looking teardrop shaped things with a huge flaming drive and articulate fins, sped towards the wall of Colonial Vipers like a pack of predatory fish in large wedge formations at tremendous speeds.

The radio chatter among the throngs of pilots was palpable as commanders and squadron leaders shouted orders.

Anticipation crept up her spine as she watched the Covenant fighters suddenly launch a flurry of smaller energy torpedoes from much further ranges than she had been briefed about.

_**Colonial Viper Mk VII**_

_** Bird Flight- Off of Battlestar Hygerra **_

_** Captain Asto**_

"_Break Break Break!"_ he screamed into his squadron mike as the angry blue spears of tracking honest to god's energy tore through space from the enemy fighters at fantastic speeds.

Vipers flipped and threw themselves onto wild new courses in an attempt to dodge the energy torpedoes, some even firing off flares and chaff in a vain attempt to spoof the missiles.

It was not to be.

Two dozen of the swarm of Vipers nearest to him turned into dirty fireballs as the missiles impacted, not exploding like normal missiles but boring into the Vipers in milliseconds and causing _them_ to explode.

Asto cursed as one missile shot not two dozen feet from his starboard wing, causing a shocking increase in ambient temperature on his plane.

To his utter horror the missiles that missed made drastic course corrections and hit another Viper or Raptor from behind or the side, slicing through them and turning them into debris. As his command link crackled to life.

"_Put the speed on and get into range now! Remember to keep firing at them until they blow up! Don't be shy on those triggers."_

__His mind calling for revenge he pressed his turbos and was pressed into his seat as the Viper shot forward, engines blazing from refined Tylium as the other Vipers followed suit.

The large alien fighers grew on his DRADIS and HUD as the targeting system managed to get a faint lock.

"Firing!" He called out as with the pull of his trigger he sent one of his anti figher missiles flying off of its launch rail towards the alien fighter not seconds away from engagement range.

The missile crossed the distance as the Covenant fighter, much to his surprise, made no attempt to evade.

Asto held his breath as the missile struck the alien fighter head on, losing lock for a second before reacquiring at the last possible second as it impacted and briefly covered the alien ship in fire.

The ship reappeared as an electric energy blister flashed and shimmered before subsiding, leaving the ship unscathed at it sped toward him like an angry beast leaving him wide eyed in shock.

"_They are on top of us!"_ one of the squadron leaders cried through the area wide frequencies as just as he looked just in time to see the alien fighers fire pulses of blue energy at him and the Vipers around him, out of range of his cannons.

They were much faster than he had expected.

"Fraking shit!" he cursed as he threw the small Viper into some of the most drastic maneuvers he had ever done, nearly holding down his RCS thrusters as he constantly adjusted his pitch and yaw while the crushing Centripetal forces assaulted him and his G-Suit.

Asto nearly went unconscious as blackness crept into the side of his narrowing vision , as the blue strobbing effect of near misses from Covenant energy weapons lit up the cockpit.

Gasping for air he pulled back on the stick and flung his fighter around, hoping to end up on the tail of an alien craft, barely noticing the screams of death and static in his squadron headset.

The flaming hulks of dozens of Vipers careened past him as the realization that nearly half of his squadron was gone hit him, joining those from the others as he poured on the turbos as he dove into the furball.

He dove and weaved as yet more Vipers joined him, and more met quick deaths in the unforgiving vacuum.

Most of the Alien fighters were using their much greater speed to simply make quick and devastating slashing attacks at the Colonial fighters, turning several more into flaming debris before the first Covenant fighter went down from streams of cannon fire by three assailing Vipers.

His DRADIS was nearly overwhelmed with the whole mess of contacts, but despite this coming in hard on his three o clock was a lone Covenant fighter that had broken off from the rest, zooming in and looking to make him yet another victim.

"Oh no frakking way you do." He breathed as he waited the several agonizing seconds as the alien fighter closed at an alarming rate as the fight and local stars and planetary bodies spun around him.

Just as the range closed he cut his engines and pulled up on the stick, using a powerful burst from his maneuvering jets, shot up and away from a burst of deadly plasma that cut through the area of space he had just been.

Fighting the crushing G forces he spun the ship and turned, hitting the throttle just in time to have the much faster and larger Covenant fighter slide into his gunsight.

Hitting the Turbos to keep the alien enemy from speeding away he jammed down the trigger as the venerable little Mk VII Viper shuddered as its three engines burned white hot and its three 30mm Cannons spat a line of orange armor penetrating rounds at the Teardrop craft.

The shields flashed yet again as they burned bright as Asto ignored his training to use short accurate bursts and held the trigger down, keeping the alien fighter in his sights as he went through the most wild maneuvers he had ever done to keep the huge Covenant fighter from speeding away or spinning around and turning him into floating molecules, briefly loosing his target before finding its burning engine trail again.

Ignoring everything else going on around him his eyes widened as the accursed energy shields finally collapsed allowing fifteen shells to tear into the hull, coring into its bluish hide as one lucky round ripped off one of the large vectoring fins, sending the alien craft into a spin trailing strange blue drive plumes as Asto cheered in victory, finish the Covenant fighter off with another long burst that perforated the Covenant fighter.

Turning back into the fight he nearly gasped as the amount of losses the Colonial fighters had taken, his DRADIS was nearly overwhelmed as the amount of spinning debris almost made the sensors useless.

But the IFF markers told the tale.

Cursing he spun around and joined another Viper in assaulting a Covenant fighter, batting down its shield in combined fire and finishing it off with a anti fighter missile, just in time for another alien fighter to come in from above, firing its weapons as the two Vipers twisted to evade.

The other pilot wasn't as lucky as a pulse of energy weapons fire hit the Viper in the cockpit, cleaving the Colonial fighter in two as Asto suddenly found himself on the defensive as the previously damaged Covenant teardrop spun around and fired a stream of angry fire in return.

_**Reverence Class Grand Cruiser**_

_** Incorruptible**_

Fleet Master Tano 'Inanraree watched the screens with both satisfaction and concern as he studied the progress of his fighters, which were tearing into the human's defenses with satisfying results.

The presence of so many human settlements had a huge surprise, to put it simply .

Four worlds, all inhabited by the same insect that was humanity. Four worlds, all pristine and within the habitable zone of the local star no less, now tainted by the presence of humans.

"Shipmaster." His targeting demos called out from the fore of the expansive bridge as holographic targeting reticules scrolled across the screen before the young Sanghelli.

"The enemy is well within our range, and we have lock on with all of our primary weapons and secondary batteries."

Looking up at the vast viewscreen he took in the sight of the Human fleet. Their ungainly ships had now sluggishly formed a defensive line in the primary lagrangian point and were now fighting off his Seraphs with their small dart like fighters, which for every one his Seraphs blew out of the sky two more seemed to take their place.

"Pull the Seraphs out and have them switch to high speed attacks on their ships and fighters, we can afford to use hit and run tactics, playing into their fighters strength and their numbers is foolish when we can burn them from the skies out of their range."

He looked again at the tactical readouts from his fleet pondering the situation.

The rest of the Empire needed to be informed of this grand discovery, but he wanted to have fun with his prey first, simply sitting back and burning them as they could have done far out of these Colonial's range provided little fun.

Looking towards the eleven ships in his fleet which were crewed by the repulsive Jileraharse, he let loose a grin as he paced the bridge before turning to his Second in Command, Field Commander Ronalee.

"Contact Bractanus, tell him that he is to take command of his squadron and they are to charge the enemy, lets see if these lesser humans can even put up a fight, but order the commander of the Heavy Destroyer _Holy Blade_ to provide limited fire support."

Ronalee let loose a deep short laugh as his longtime friend nodded in understanding.

_**CDF Atlas**_

"We have about a third of the enemy fleet coming in fast, nearing 40,000 kilometers!" her XO Francis Denota called out as twelve Covenant ships surged forward on the DRADIS like a flock of predatory fish on Picon of Aquarion.

Glancing at the optical viewer she watched as a the very loose formation of two manta ray like CRS Light Cruisers, four Corvettes, three Frigates, a single Destroyer and a CCR Cruiser with the looming and imposing alien form of a one point five kilometer RPV Class Heavy Destroyer following closely behind, approached the defensive line with deadly and arrogant intent.

"Enemy fighters are breaking off for now, Lords we took some losses ." Denota breathed as she handed the reports for the Admiral's scrutiny as Stern's eyes danced over the report.

Indeed that was an understatement, nearly seven full squadrons of thirty Vipers and Raptors apiece had already been turned to atomized chunks of melted debris, and taking only about half of the initial wave of Covenant teardrop fighters with them, whose numbers had only swelled as they launched another two hundred which spread out into V shaped squadrons of Ten fighters apiece and rocketed into the ever growing furball.

The fleet moved into position to intercept as weapons ports opened and main batteries charged as the collective sensors of the now eighty two defending ships reached out into the vacuum beginning to attain a lock at the edge of their effective combat range.

"Tell the Vipers and Raptors to get out of the way and hold the perimeter, those Fighters are coming back again." Sterns ordered as the main fleet accelerated ahead, leaving the Commandstar with its escorting Berserker Cruisers.

"Aye sir." The comms officers replied as Sterns pulled the latest transmission off of the machine, eyeing the paper and throwing it away into the growing stack.

"Twenty seconds to effective range, enemy still closing, DRADIS is having trouble picking up energy signatures."

The collective mood and anticipation in the CIC could not have been more transparent as Admiral Sterns felt here pulse quicken in her throat as the seconds ticked by.

"Ten seconds…_Poseidon_ confirms lock on, rest of the fleet is confirming!" Denota called as the transmission from the Warstar heading the defenses confirmed a lock on.

"They may fire…." Sterns was cut off by the yells from the communications officers.

"Enemy is firing!"

A hundred plus beams of concentrated and condensed energy that could have powered a small town with each pulse speared out across the darkness and into the Colonial ships.

Beams and laser pulses melted and burned through armor on dozens of ships and sliced open weapons and whole decks as ships buckled under the assault.

One of the diminutive Valkyries dipped out of formation with its bow belching flame and atmosphere as several smaller warships slowly spun out of formation with decks ripped open and engines damaged, firing their maneuvering thrusters to right their possibly endless tumble as bulkheads sealed to end the proverbial bleeding.

Ignoring the reports of damage throughout the fleet Sterns nearly screamed.

"Return fire!"

The collective firepower from a single Zeus Class Warstar, seven Mercury Battlestars, nine older Pleiades class Battlestars, eight Columbia Battlestars, twenty two Berserker Cruisers, eight Siegestars, nine Valkyrie Light Battlestars , five Destroyers, eleven Gunstars and the limited firepower of two Brimer Carriers; cleaved through the dark as hundreds of Heavy Main Railgun slugs, secondary battery projectiles and several hundred missiles streaked towards the Covenant ships.

The smaller and more agile of the alien warships let loose a large burn from their engines, appearing to a casual observer like comets flashing into existence as they moved themselves out of the line of fire while the _Holy Blade_ , destroyers, frigates and Cruisers switched their lasers to fast tracking modes .

Swarms of Colonial anti ship missiles were speared by quick pulses of directed energy and flashed out of existence, turning into nothing more than fireworks as the Covenant point defenses swatted the slow moving Colonial missiles out of the sky with arrogant ease.

All the while their lateral lines coalesced in energy.

Some twenty seconds after their firing, the Colonial fusillade hit unabated as the Covenant vessels disappeared behind a wall of electrical fire and static as their shields took the blows.

The Colonial commanders and officers watched, their eyes transfixed to their displays as the latest DRADIS sweep sent out another pulse.

One of the Corvettes emerged with a trio of hull breaches and trailing debris from hits dealt it by a Mercury's main bow guns, its engines sputtering and its armor dented inwards in several more places as the Heavy Destroyer moved to cover the wounded ship.

"By the Gods." Sterns breathed as she watched in awe as the alien vessels released a wave of Plasma torpedoes.

Tearing into the blackness of space, sixteen streaking lances of blue plasma and energy tore across the distance (and comparatively short range to the Covenant), in seconds.

The wall of defensive fire and flak the Colonial fleet put up was about as useful as a umbrella against the gall of a hurricane.

Two Gunstars simply went nova as the torpedoes travelled the entire length of the ships and expended their energies in the engine blocks while at the same time the Mercury class Battlestar _Liani _listed suddenly on its axis as a torpedo wrecked much of its bow, setting the bow ablaze as atmosphere spewed into space.

Escape pods launched from a Cruiser as fires and explosions raced across the length of the doomed vessel , the pods dodging the debris of a dying Valkyrie light battlestar whose port flight pod was completely severed and belching quickly dying flames from ruptured fuel lines.

"Holy Frak!" Sterns watched in horror as three of the energy torpedoes burned and ripped into the bowels of the Columbia Class Battlestar_ Vega, _igniting the fuel lines and storage for the Viper's tylium.

The amidships of the 1600 meter warship bulged outwards for a brief moment before turning into a brief and gigantic fireball, briefly blinding the DRADIS as the remains of the ship spun into the paths of Vipers while back on the _Atlas_ the crew frantically relayed the reports.

"_Vega _is down with all hands! _Liani_ reports heavy damage to its bow!"

"_Zodiac_ is combat ineffective, abandoning ship!"

"Escorts _Gia _and _Oina_ are off of the scanners!"

"Cruisers _Caprica's Way_ and _Scorpion_ are lost! Vipers are confirming the Destroyer _Celestron_ is drifting."

Her mind nearly overwhelmed with the damage reports the Colonial admiral cut them off as one of the ideas and tactics used by Admiral Kaviss dawned on her.

"Have ALL ships vent atmosphere where they are hit by those things! All ships Fire at will! Spread into battlesquadrons! Full use of nuclear ordinance is authorized!" she ordered as more pulse lasers stitched lines of damage and destruction across the fleet.

Two more Ships dipped out of formation trailing debris as the fleet let loose their full destructive fury, firing barrage after barrage of slugs and shells towards the enemy as the Covenant fired in kind, coring into yet more Colonial ships with energy beams followed by a volley of high energy secondary plasma cannons.

Sterns clenched her fist as yet another Light Battlestar went up followed by a Gunstar spinning away trailing bodies and a dozen hull breaches dealt it by Plasma cannons.

That was nine ships now.

The shields on the Covenant ships were aflame as they recklessly surged forward, the only semblance of a greater tactical mindset were the supporting alien fighters making slashing attacks and further depleting her Vipers and attempting to strafe her ships.

However what worried her was the fact that the larger ships were just sitting back and watching, only firing a laser at any Raptors that came too close and swatting them out of the sky.

The wounded Corvette finally broke up under the guns of a Pleiades Class Battlestar, and a Covenant frigate and light cruiser lost their shields and had wounds open up in their hulls as yet another wave of surviving missiles, some nuclear, hit the Covenant ships, covering them in fire and nuclear radiation. As the brief suns dissipated they revealed the wounded Frigate tumbling out of formation aflame and the Destroyer's shield's collapsing.

The Covenant responded with yet another volley of torpedoes, and this time the Pleiades Class Battlestar that destroyed the corvette was singled out as it exploded in flame and debris and tumbled away, joining the melted mass of a holed Mercury and a nearly bisected cruiser in the expanding floating graveyard.

Yet another Gunstar went up as dozens of Laser pulses played over the ship as the Siegestar_ Taor_ began spinning in place as atmosphere vented from a dozen hole breaches.

However the worst was to come.

A Second alien Corvette shattered under the combined firepower of the Warstar _Poseidon _and the Light Battlestar _Janasburo _while the wounded alien light cruiser succumbed to its wounds with the help of trio of anti ship missiles from a Siegstar detonating inside it. All the while a huge burst of energy collected at the fore of the Covenant Heavy Destroyer.

The sensors throughout the fleet picked up a huge climb in ambient energy and heat from the bow of the alien ship before in a millisecond the energies went absolutely off of the scale and disappeared.

The fore energy projector on the _Holy Blade_ flashed a brief and hellish pencil thin beam of pure uncontrolled energized matter that sliced through the dark with a bright purplish beam that almost instantly impacted headlong into the bow of the Columbia Class Battlestar _Talos_.

The beam simply burned through entire decks and feet of armor in an instant , slicing through the upper decks and instantly igniting atmosphere but also fuel and equipment, exiting out of the engine block of the Battlestar and winking out of existence as fast as it had flashed into existence.

One sixteenth of the Battlestar's mass had instantly been vaporized.

The _Talos_ heaved as explosive decompression ripped through it faster than bulkheads could halt, vaporizing even more of the ship as its entire length rippled as its proverbial structural spine snapped as more intense explosions tore the guts out from the bowels of the Colonial warship, which began to violently break up as the fellow warships watched in horror.

The defensive line beginning to collapse the attacking Covenant ships surged forward, firing more lances of pulse lasers and several more plasma torpedoes tore into the Colonial fleet, spilling more human bodies tumbling into the void as another three ships winked out of the _Atlas's_ displays or were disabled.

By this point the much faster Covenant ships had closed to knife fighting range, approaching the edge of the Colonial's 10,000 kilometer optimal engagement range.

Luckily for the Colonials, who were not aware of it at the time, the ships were commanded by the recently inducted Brutes, whom tended to simply rush their opponents and focus their ship's firepower at the enemy and only held a limited focus on point defenses.

Something that Admiral Sterns had begun to notice.

"Give me a link to the Siegestars, tell them to spin up their FTL drives!" she shouted as the ship rocked as a single pulse laser from one of the Frigates swept over the bow of the Commandstar, blowing out a section of a deck.

"Aye sir!" the XO responded as she watched the situation.

These aliens were extremely aggressive, so much so that they were willing to place their ships in harm's way by focusing their power on destroying her ships and not intercepting her missiles. Though they could afford to, as most of her missiles simply exploded harmlessly against their shields and at the long ranges they had been previously fighting at they were swept from the sky before they could hit their targets most of the time.

Though her fleet was suffering horribly from the fury of the alien's tactics, a point buried home as two ships succumbed to the deadly efficiency of the aliens advanced weapons, the fact was that even though as badly damaged her heavy units; her Battlestars and Cruisers, were, they were still mostly in play.

However she would lose them all soon if she did not act now.

"Order them to plot a jump directly off of the starboard side of the enemy ships. I don't care if they will scatter their formation or how inaccurate they claim a point blank jump will be they just need to get as close as they can. I want them to launch every nuke and anti ship missile they have at point blank range on my order. They are to hold back as the battlestars and Cruisers to surge forward and to the port side of the enemy ship's flank. Our remaining escorts are to hold back."

The crew immediately began dispatching her orders as she watched the battle unfold.

The now exposed hull of the Covenant destroyer was a wreck as fleet's heavy guns pounded away at the thicker hide while the Colonial's ships shifted, the larger Battlestars and cruisers pushing their engines well past the safeties and firing broad side after broadside from their weapons.

The Covenant Destroyer was finished off as something vital within the ship was hit, the ship splitting open from within as the Colonials cracked open the shields on another of the remaining Frigates.

However the powerful shields of the Cruiser and the Heavy Destroyer refused to overload, covering the two larger alien vessels in electrical stormed of fire as the two ships responded in anger as they turned to give chase.

Ten more angry lances of plasma torpedoes and a fusillade of pulse lasers speared into the Colonial advance, ripping apart two more Battlestars and out rightly slicing apart two more Berserker Cruisers, the flaming hulks of their now dead and dying superstructures tumbling away into the endless void while the other ships sustained heavy damage, the _Poseidon _losing her number two flight pod to vacuum.

Her escorts, the remaining Light Battlestars , Destroyers and Gunstars, launched every last remaining missile they had, leaving five dozen ghostly contrails cutting a path towards the enemy.

Not even half of them made it half way to the target before they were erased by a sweep of directed energy weaponry.

Admiral Sterns clenched her fist, it was now or never.

"Execute!"

The 800 meter long alligator like wedges of her seven remaining Siegstars flashed out of existence, and nearly immediately all eight of them appeared right next to or behind the alien vessels, several barely a hundred miles out.

Before the Covenant Commanders could have even reacted, much less recover from the shock at the "lesser" human's ability to perform such a short ranged jump, the Siegestars lateral and dorsal sides simply erupted as every last anti ship and nuclear missiles leapt from their launch rails and cut across the short distance in seconds.

The Covenant ships, having tightened their formation in preparation to plow through the Colonial battlefleet and with their pulse lasers still tasked with intercepting the previous wave of missiles, were defenseless.

At once dozens of new stars burst forth into existence as more and more missiles and nuclear weapons hit, some vaporized by the previous detonoation but others surviving and detonating as well.

Radiation heat blurred out the Covenant warships for a full twenty seconds as the Seigestars exhausted their nuclear munitions, hurridly trying to regroup with the main fleet as their DRADIS tried to re-acquire a lock.

Sterns watched the screens as her heart thumbed in her chest.

"Tell all ships to empty their weapons the second they get a new lock.."

She was cut off by cries of alarm and shock from the crew.

"Maam! We have a contact! Two Covenant warships are still active!"

The Heavy Destroyer and a lone Frigate emerged from the dissipating cloud of debris and radiation, both of them with visible thermal damage as they both limped forward, amazingly surviving as the rest of the Covenant ships were now nothing more than radioactive debris.

The Frigate, though heavily damaged, still let loose a torpedo that burned open one of the Siegestars and disabled another with the combined pulse lasers from the two alien ships.

The thirty Colonial warships from her main fleet, sensing victory accelerated all fired as one without waiting for orders.

The damaged Covenant Heavy Destroyer, its hull scorched and its systems fluctuating with no hope of escape, defiantly fired its bow Energy projector , slicing a Cruiser almost nearly in two with its pencil thin beam of matter.

Dozens upon dozens of railgun slugs tore into the alien vessels, opening decks and punching through bulkheads and armor as another, then another salvo pounded the ships into oblivion.

The Frigate finally broke apart, its broken shell spinning into two different directions as the Heavy Destroyer, its course now ballistic and its hull almost unrecognizable, erupted in a giant blue fireball as its reactor went critical.

The combined cries of joy from the ships of the fleet rose to a fever pitch over the fleet wide radio as the crew of the _Atlas_ congratulated each other only to be cut off by Admiral Sterns.

"Quiet! We still have two thirds of the enemy fleet left!"

She looked at the tactical display with growing despair.

Thirty of her ships were now out rightly destroyed, their hulks melted and blown open as the remaining fifty two ships all had damage, some serious.

Worse still her nuclear stockpile were running low, and she still was staring down twenty four of those monsters, all of whom were much more powerful than the ones they had just fought.

"Reform the fleet. We have to hold them as long as we can" the admiral cooly ordered, knowing just how hopeless it was.

_**Incorruptible **_

"Fleetmaster, Bractanus and the _Holy Blade_ are destroyed. Orders?" Field Master Ronalee turned to the Fleet Master, who sat brooding in his command chair.

"They put up much more of a fight than anticipated. Still a pathetic attempt." Inanraree growled as he turned to face the fellow Zealot.

"Do we have targeting?"

"Yes Fleetmaster."

The Sangheili's mandibles formed into a human looking grin."

"Accelerate and open fire."

_**UNSC Wink of An Eye**_

"Christ they are going to simply snipe them from out of their weapons range!" Lieutenant Haverson remarked as he watched the energy readings on the Covenant warships skyrocket as their lateral lines collected energy for the inevitable.

Commander Branson watched the holographic tactical displays as the _Wink of an Eye_ coasted on its own momentum at a point some hundred thousand kilometers "above" the battlezone and coming from a slingshot orbit from under the cover of its Stealth systems and the interference provided by the Colonial world "_Tauron" _it was called; natural satellite's rings.

The moment the sensors on the UNSC prowler had picked up the huge outburst of Čerenkov Radiation from the exit of the Covenant battlefleet, the crews of the two ships immediately were horrified of the immediate and obvious repercussions.

Branson did not know how, but the Covenant did not just find the Colonials by chance this soon after the UNSC had by mistake. Space was far too vast for such an occurrence.

No they had tracked them here, and if they had potentially tracked the _Prophesy _here they could have tracked it….to Reach.

The very thought unsettled his stomach.

However during their station here, now approaching a second week, Fallon had intercepted brief flashes of discreet radio traffic and even a primitive but workable laser com buoy system that had given the AI's translator matrix hours of information and a revelation.

(As well as the possible existence of an extremely well hidden command and control base)

The Colonials had already met the Covenant.

The AI and his officers had guessed that it couldn't have been more than a month or two ago, but by the dramatic increase in their defenses and how they had put themselves on an even more defensive war footing than they had before only confirmed it.

As he watched the battle unfold he could clearly tell they had fought them before, as they focused their much weaker firepower on only several ships at a time and tried to draw the aliens in close.

"As much good as that did them" he thought.

He cringed as ship after ship broke apart or burned under the Covenant's weaponry.

And he had thought the UNSC was outgunned; a two to three ratio disadvantage looked pretty good compared to how the Colonials were faring, a six to one or worse disparity.

He had dispatched the _Red Horse_, the fellow Prowler, back to UNSC space at flank speed, a trip that would take days to reach the nearest outpost equipped with a Slipspace COM Launcher to contact HIGHCOM and Earth, a system that would still take days.

Until then he was forced to watch as the Covenant forces assaulted the Colonials.

They had already no doubt idly sent whatever communication system they had to contact the rest of the Covenant about their discovery, and more ships would soon start flowing into the system and the three others and start slaughtering billions.

"Sir, what do we do?" Haverson asked as he and the rest of the crew turned to him, their eyes betraying their thoughts.

They couldn't sit back and watch this anymore.

Fallon's ever unique avatar flashed into existence next to his commander's seat, illuminating the dim bridge and overriding the red hue that shone throughout the crammed space of people and control screens and consols.

"Commander we are not under any orders regarding this situation. I and I am sure my biological counterparts agree that we must help these Colonials, UNSC citizens or not, they are human and the Covenant will still slaughter them."

Branson knew it in his gut to.

He knew he was in for a ringing from his superiors, but superiors be damned.

"Weap Ops, how many Hornet mines are we carrying?" he turned to the younger woman at her station.

"Sir we have ten mines, forty megatons apiece. Not enough to put much more than a dent in their fleet."

Branson cringed, they couldn't destroy more than a ship or two, most certainly the monsters the Covenant had in their main fleet.

"What is the status of those new Torpedoes Command was kind enough to give us at Earth?"

The AI was the one to answer this time, trying to politely answer the woman at the same time he cut her off.

"The Mk. 13 Fusion Adaptable Stealth Delivery System, or FASDS? We have eight of them sir and I am not too sure about the Stealth coating on them surviving their magnetic launch rails, plus we have to get within twenty thousand kilometers to use them, and they do not have the power to crack the shields on a shielded target."

"But they can certainly crack an unshielded ship open am I correct?"

"Yes," the AI nodded as a sly grin formed on it's face, "But you would need to drop the shields on one ship before firing.

With that Branson turned to Haverson, "Helm give me a burn around here." He pointed on the star chart at the area of space where the Covenant would likely flow through, where the lagrangian point's stable gravity would allow for a greater range of mobility.

"Aye sir." Haverson acknowledged as the Prowler's engines burst to life for a five second burn before shutting off, the stealth systems, baffles and electronic camouflage working overtime trying to keep the ship hidden.

"Sir! Enemy ships are preparing to fire on the Colonials!" the navigation officer cried aloud as Branson watched in silence on the main display at the fore of the dimly lit ovalish bridge.

The hellish angry energy from dozens of plasma turrets, cannons , pulse lasers and energy projectors burned an image into his irises as they all fired as one.

Branson and the others all inhaled as a wall of no less than fifty lances of Plasma torpedoes, the Covenant ships charging their weapons to full power and having spent time charging all of their emitters to their full capacity, all scorched the blackness of space as they tore across the distance towards the seemingly helpless squadrons of battered and bruised Colonial warships.

"My god.." he whispered as the Colonial warships launched one last defiant and titanic salvo of railgun fire and missiles at the enemy that was far out of their range, some hopelessly off the mark as several ships frantically tried to turn out of the way and others dumped atmosphere from their outer areas while their smaller single ships and fighters spun out of the line of fire and death.

The spears of death and destruction hit nearly as one.

Colonial ships hulls armor boiled and vaporized, mixed with venting oxygen and photonic pressure that blasted the flames into wavering plumes. Entire Battlestars erupted and twisted in space as their mass was suddenly reduced dramatically and shockwaves travelled the lengths of their frames, blasting through bulkheads and sections alike.

Already damaged Cruisers and Light Battlestars literally melted and burst apart as fuel and atmosphere expanded within, tuning feats of human engineering into angry smears of fire and debris.

The Commandstar _Atlas_ spun around helplessly as one of its twin hulls sheered off completely and its engines melted from the stress.

A larger Mercury Battlestar suddenly went silent as twin lances of hellfire simply erased the iconic alligator bow of the warship, killing all inside almost instantly as once proud warships that had previously fought off an assault with all their might were now simply slaughtered.

Branson didn't even realize he was cursing as the gigantic Covenant Reverence Super Cruiser fired its twin energy projectors in unison, targeting the already nearly disabled Warstar _Poseidon _that had been leading the Colonial charge.

The thin twin beams of hyper accelerated matter and energy traced paths of death along the battered prow of the two thousand meter long warship, slicing through armor and decks as if it were not there and obliterating the ships in a dramatic transfer of heat, energy and pressure waves as the beams exited the other side of the Colonial dreadnaught, which for a second began a lazy tumble before a series of huge pressure waves burst from within the bowels of the ship, setting off the reactor and leaving nothing but spinning flaming debris that quickly died in the lack of oxygen.

The RPV Heavy Destroyers and CCS Battlecruisers followed suit in firing their own single Energy Projectors, vaporizing or cleaving apart nine more already dead or doomed Colonial warships in a fantastic display of overkill.

The two or three surviving ships tried to flee before the Covenant fleet, having already casually accelerated towards the planet, fired a fusillade of laser pulses that cored and split open the remaining ships, before their targeting turned to the tumbling debris that were the shattered hulks of the Colonial fleet as only a couple of dozen escape pods launched from them, burning into the remains of the ships and causing yet three more to blossom into fireballs.

It was all over in thirty seconds.

Not one of the Colonial ships were left as the wings of surviving Vipers no longer with any support tried to make best speed back to the helpless jewel of Tauron now with flocks of much faster Seraphs giving chase and picking them apart.

The volley of railgun slugs and missiles that the Colonials had fired which had managed to make it and hit the Covenant ships simply bounced off of glowing energy shields.

It was the worst slaughter he had ever seen.

"Sir?" Sir!" the commander vaguely heard as his grip crushed the armrests of his seat in rage.

His senses returned to him as he pulled his eyes away from the screen to look back at the crew, all of them with anger and hate in their eyes as some of the female officers were wiping away tears.

"Yes?" Branson replied as he cleared his throat, realizing he had to bite down and swallow his own emotions.

"We have one of the CCS's in our range and we can launch four of the Fury's to pop its shields, anything else will give us away and be a waste." Lieutenant Haverson replied as the crew all looked to their commander for support.

He nodded as he glanced over to the avatar of Fallon, the AI clearly showing sorrow on his artificial projection of a face as well, so telling in fact that Branson had to remind himself it wasn't "real".

"Launch them, and take us in. Give me a dry firing computation for our torpedoes and fire them dumb, that EMP will knock out our targeting for a few minutes at this range and turning on our targeting radars will give us away. Take us in."

Haverson nodded as with a burn from the 162 meter manta ray ship's engines he crossed the threshold for the closest a Prowler had ever attempted to get to a Covenant warship.

The Covenant fleet was beginning to spread out to form a loose orbital perimeter around the planet, a tactic that he knew meant either a planetary glassing or the landing of an invasion force, something those four alien carriers and Battlecruisers certainly held within them.

The Prowler had used its momentum from its slingshot orbit to catch up and eat of proverbial "ground" between them, but they were now closer than any Prowler had ever dared attempted to get.

"Dry launching Fury's, One Two, Three and Four away." The weapon's officer seemingly whispered unnecessarily as the three nuclear mines accelerated away from the outwardly invisible UNSC stealth ship, their small boosters accelerating their coated frames towards one of the CCS's that was further away from the flagship than all of the other ships, most likely moving to take out the Colonial's defense station.

Branson could only imagine the hell that was currently taking place on the surface of the world and the command station, as its crew were completely helpless to the inevitable .

But for every Covenant ship that he could destroy he knew he would safe countless more from the horror of an orbital plasma bombardment, even if it was just one small victory.

As the minutes ticked by the deadly form of the Covenant Battlecruiser grew larger and larger as the helm plotted the best interception course, one that would place them right in the middle of the graveyard of Colonial ships.

Branson swallowed and said a quick prayer as the twisted hulk of a Colonial Light Battlestar, its hull still glowing a dim orange from the extreme heat of the Covenant torpedo that had tore into its hull and burned the center of the ship to a cinder, spun past.

"The radar is almost useless out here." Haverson called as he piloted the ship past the twenty thousand mark.

"Turn it off! We don't need it anyway, we will fly blind." Branson quickly ordered as Fallon immediately did so, the Commander wiping a bead of sweat from his brow as the range ticked down by the second.

"Twenty Thousand kilometers sir, I can turn on our targeting just long enough for our torpedoes to acquire a lock a switch it back off after we fire, we can fire them blind in this mess sir." The Weapon's officer replied as the eerie graveyard of ships floated by.

"Do it. Fallon our nukes?"

The AI nodded as code flowed the length of his body for a moment before answering.

"Ive positioned them as close as I can and on all different sides, I suggest we do this now because a patrol of Seraphs are coming near us, I find it odd but I think they are going to move to establish an orbital perimeter and land troops." The AI announced.

"Probably to have more fun massacring more people, targeting light them up!" Branson responded firmly.

The crew went to work and after thirty seconds Haverson cried out.

"Ive got tone!"

Branson didn't waste a second as he stood up, unable to keep himself seated, "Launch number one and two! Fallon detonate and shut down our radar now! Zero emissions!"

The ship rocked and its camouflage flickered out of existence as two fifteen meter long Fusion tipped torpedoes wrapped in a stealth coating launched from their two magnetic launch assisted tubes and rocketed away.

Four suns burst into existence around the 1700 meter long Covenant warship, bathing it in fire, head and radiation as it disappeared from the screens for several seconds.

"Come on." He breathed as he watched the fires subside as the deadly form of the alien Battlecruiser re-emerged from the fires of destruction.

And with its shields burning bright.

"No!" Branson roared as the torpedoes ignited their boosters, accelerating to hundreds of Gees and closed the gap.

The crew watched as the missiles closed, undetected by the blinded sensors of the alien warship and the other ships in the area that were not overcome with EMP.

"They are going to bounce off." Branson cursed as the torpedoes closed to within seconds of impact.

Then, as if by some sort of error on the set, the shields on the CCS flickered off and collapsed with a spark, somehow overloaded from stress or some fortunate miss giving.

The UNSC crew and commander couldn't even respond in surprise as the two multi-megaton fusion torpedoes, now unhindered, slammed into the unshielded hide of the vast warship and detonated.

The viewscreens went white as the alien battleship disappeared.

Two fifty megaton jets of plasma and gas as hot as a star cored into ship, burning through thick armor plating and hull, and found the central magnetic plasma lines feeding the Covenant warship's reactor.


	11. Chapter 11

**Sorry for the wait, I was in China for a study abroad and then I have been tied down with work ever since.**

**NOTE: I decided to make the standard rifle the Colonial Army uses to be the rifle that Leboen has in the original two part miniseries movie on Ragnar station that has a stock and a longer barrel and muzzle, as it is the only thing that I could find any information on in the BSG wiki and is the only thing that is not a blatant real world rifle. It is actually a real one off rifle that is a heavily modified AR-15 made in Japan called the Raisen, so I also borrowed the name. **

**Also I really had to make up everything else about the Colonial army, as we know nothing about them, so I decided to make them like the modern US Military circa ten or twenty years from now. Enjoy.**

**Its not the longest chapter, but I really wanted to update before school starts back up.**

_**Colonial Defense Forces**_

_**Columbia Class Battlestar Galactica**_

_**High Orbit of Virgon**_

Adama crumpled up the report and tossed it straight into the trash, he had seen enough.

Behind him sitting on the tan and worn couch in his cabin Sigh again cursed, finishing off the glass of Ambrosa in his hands.

"The entire frakking fleet?! The entire Tauron defense forces swept aside like…" the man got to his feet with a grunt before continuing, "Like a fraking wet paper bag!?"

Adama shook his head as he turned to face his XO, the smell of the liquor still fresh on his lips.

"We are going to the CIC, and we are joining the fleet at the rally point in between Picon and Tauron, now are you coming?" he sternly asked his longtime friend.

The two looked at each other for a minute.

The vice Admiral began to turn towards the cabin door as Tigh shot up from his seat.

"Wait for me. Someone has to scare the shit out of the crew, even more so than this scares me."

Minutes later the two made their way into the CIC, and as soon as the Marines called out the admiral on the deck every eye in the CIC of the officers immediately trained to Adama.

Walking in he could feel the anxiety and worry of the crew.

No doubt they had heard.

Even as he walked into the CIC Adama could hear the crew whispering as he strode past.

"_I heard that the entire fleet was obliterated. "_

_ "Have you heard anything about my family? I heard that contact with the entire colony was lost."_

As he stepped to the center of the combat information center and tactical charts Tigh gave him one last assuring nod as he grabbed the ship wide com.

The entire ship, from the deckhands in the flight pods to the officers in the CIC, went deathly silent as Adama gripped the handset.

_Lords help me_

"_Attention. This is Adama." _He spoke simply , wincing at the unnecessary introduction of himself as the intercom crackled, the age of the ship's system's showing.

"_Approximately six hours ago, thirty six unknown contacts jumped into the Helios Alpha system, about 12 AU's from Tauron, and promptly accelerated directly towards the colony. The contacts…"_

He paused thinking of the best way to word it.

"…_The Contacts were not of human origin."_

The Officers present all paused, the look of disbelief rolling over their expressions as he continued.

"_They call themselves "The Covenant, as for more information about them it is sarce and we are gathering everything that is coming in by the minute As the contacts neared the world of Tauron, the local Tauron Defensive fleet moved to intercept. Attempts of communication , failed. At 0800 hours Tauron time, the enemy launched fighter craft and attacked."_

Brief gasps were heard.

"_According to the reports, significant losses were incurred by the fleet, with the enemy forces taking few losses. All we know is, when contact was finally terminated with the flagship, defending forces managed to down twelve of their vessels before the entire defense fleet was overrun and all contact was lost, command assumes that all ships are lost or disabled. The last reports we have are of the enemy ships establishing orbital supremacy with possible orbital bombardment of military bases and civilian population centers with reports of the landing of enemy ground elements."_

Adama again paused to collect his thoughts, wiping his brow as his sweat dripped onto the brim of his glasses.

"_We are to assume that Tauron is under a full fledged invasion. All that command is letting us know is that these are the things that have been responsible for the attacks near the Line, and that Picon believes that these, Covenant, are currently at war with the UNSC and the 13__th__ Tribe. We getting updates on the situation and available information on the enemy's abilities. What I can tell you is, we are about to face an enemy that is according to reports far more advanced than we are. They have better ships, weapons, and fighters than we do. But make no mistake, they will REGRET the day that they chose to attack us. As of now we are at war. All crew are to man their posts and prepare the ship for immediate combat. We are jumping to gather with Admiral Kaviss's reaction force in between Caprica and Tauron .Out."_

The CIC erupted into action with officers giving reports and preparing the old girl for battle as Adama turned to Tigh.

"This is just a fraking mess. Geata what do you got on the board?" he asked as Tigh forrowed his brow after looking at the latest report from Tyrol.

"The FTL is reporting green sir and we have set our course to rendezvous with Kaviss. We are all set to jump." The Lieutenant replied as Adama paced the CIC .

"Start the clock on the jump. Ready all squadrons for launch."

In the ready room Lee, Starbuck and the other pilots all simply traded glances before Kara jumped up and turned to the rest of the chattering pilots.

"What are you frakking deaf? Get the frak up and move!"

Pilots raced to their awaiting Vipers, all of them the new Mk. VII's as deckhands led by Chief Tyrol hurried to push the fighters into their launch tubes and make as many last minute maintenance checks on them as they could.

The Galactica, the oldest warship in the fleet, broke off from the escorting flight of Vipers from Virgon's defense fleet and broke for deep space. The ship readying itself to go back to war.

With a flash and a brief trip through folded space, it did.

_**Tauron**_

_**3**__**rd**__** Mechanized Armored Brigade –Colonial Army**_

_**Olympia, suburbs of the city of Hypathia**_

Private 1st class Joseph Nadell gripped his rifle, a 8mm Raisen Assault Rifle as another series of energy bolts tore through the air to impact the brick wall he had taken cover behind, melting layers of it and blowing a steaming hole not three inches above his helmeted head.

"Frak! Frak! Frak!" he nearly screamed as he rolled his bruised body to a new position as the wine of the alien's energy weapons and the clatter of Colonial weapons reached a fever pitch.

"Some one take out that leader!" his squad radio attached to his shoulder harness crackled as his Sergeant bellowed over the squad shortwave radio.

The battle had started as soon as the defensive fleet had been swept aside by these aliens and began to land forces all over the world some four hours ago now. The starbase of Tauron Defense HQ was presumably now debris and the few weapons satellites were all but mincemeat to these Covenant, allowing them to land their forces with near impunity as two of their larger capitol ships had come planetside, one over two of the largest cities on the colony, Tauron City, and the second situated above the capitol Hypathia.

Nearly half of the military bases were simply erased by a quick orbital bombardment of energy torpedoes and laser beams, and the Vipers and Raptors that rose up to try and meet them simply couldn't do enough damage to get past their energy barriers to do any good, and the anti orbital Nuclear missiles and Rail Guns were unable to get off more than one or two shots before the installations were targeted and vaporized.

Luckily the Cylon War had taught the Colonial Defense Forces what to do if orbital supremacy was lost, and during the 40 years since most bases held large underground motor pools and barracks as to keep the fight going.

That was four hours ago.

Nadell and his company, part of the larger 3 rd Mechanized Brigade had immediately began moving towards the city of Hypathia from Ft. Gellion thirty miles outside the city through the mountains in an effort to fight off the invaders as soon as they began landing to help with evacuation efforts.

An hour ago they had met their first resistance in the suburb of Olympia, previously a very exclusive and rich part of the city before the current battle had left the affluent neighborhoods a fiery ruin.

A nearby set of skyscrapers of Olympia's once thriving business district were either aflame or missing chunks of their outer structure, with one 30 story building leaning lazily to its side with its roof having crashed into another 45 story tall tower across the street from it, adding to a surreal sight as endless streams of anti air cannon fire shot into the air trying to hold off attacking Covenant fighters.

Already the fires and their smoke were clouding up the sky.

Again forced to switch for new cover, the 23 year old Caprican native slipped on a loose brick that was once part of the side of a now collapsed ruin, tripping and falling flat on his face.

And right on top of the smoldering body of a fellow soldier.

"Shit!" he screamed aloud as he rolled himself off of the corpse and took in a deep breath.

He nearly gagged immediately after as the overwhelming smell of burnt human flesh that was still smoldering overcame him as his eyes locked onto what was left of the fellow soldier.

The man had died with his eyes wide open in terror as the alien's plasma ripped the man in half and melted his torso, all that was left were blackened bones and organs where the soldier's chest cavity had once been, his body armor simply melted _to_ him.

For several seconds Nadell forgot about the battle going on around him as bullets and energy bolts flew around him with the distant thunder of a dogfight raging high over head and the roar of the main gun of a Urban Combat Infantry Vehicle half a block away rattled the earth as it engaged some unseen enemy.

His eyes locked onto the man before the more logical part of his brain knocked him back into the reality around him.

Cursing he slammed his back against a more prominent pile of rubble and popped his head up for a second to look for targets.

They were everywhere.

He nearly kept his head up too long as a super hot bolt of plasma ripped through the air not three feet from his face as he ducked back into cover.

"Frak this." He breathed as he pulled the pin on one of his three grenades, held the explosive fragmentation grenade for two seconds, stepped back and threw it over the cover towards the general assortment of the smaller dog like aliens that seemed to be nothing more than cannon fodder.

_They still had worn them down_

A second later a surprised alien and unintelligible screech of alarm rose from behind his cover as the dull thump and teeth rattling explosion ripped through the enemy.

Not wasting his chance he popped out of cover with his rifle searching for targets.

On the other side of the debris on a burning lawn of the what was left of the house next door two aliens were laying still as green blood oozed from wounds that the supersonic bits of metal had torn open.

And another two were frantically looking for cover as they shot at every bit of cover in nearly every direction in an attempt to find the human responsible.

But they didn't find him.

Pulling the trigger he sent one burst of 8mm FMJ rounds into the creature twenty yards away, catching it in the chest as it went down in a shrieking cry of pain.

The other alien tried to turn its small green and odd looking energy pistol like weapon towards Nadell.

The human was faster.

Another burst hit the alien square in its large head, splitting it open as whatever gas it breathed through its respirator escaped into the air as its lifeless body hit the earth limp.

Nadell began to move to a new position as two other men from his squad, Fryea and Rosentha , joined him as they tore across a cratered lawn to one of the more intact houses.

As the trio neared the side of the house, one of the windows on the second floor shattered outwards as one of the large and terrifying 8 foot tall reptilian aliens in blue armor punched through it and in a flash raised its large pronged weapon and sent a stream of blue energy bolts towards them.

Nadell's eyes shot wide open in terror as he looked into the face of the alien as its mandibles opened revealing rows of sharp teeth, his heart thumping in his throat as adrenaline pumped and he dove to the side with not a moment to spare as a plasma bolt caught the edge of his left leg's BDU, burning it off and scorching his thigh as he hit the earth and rolled up against the brick façade of the house , wincing in pain at the 2nd degree burn on his leg.

The other two were not so lucky, their screams were cut short as their burnt and smoldering bodies hit the ground with a lifeless thud as Nadell's horrified face watched their skin cook from the intense heat of whatever those things shot.

Gripping his rifle he got into a crouch as he ignored the protests from his burning nerves, and moved towards the back of the house wishing that his squad had not been cut apart in the initial attack.

Keying his mike attached to his helmet and combat goggles he found the wider frequency of the local commanders.

"This is Breaker One Nine, I am fifty meters up the street coming up the back of the white two story house that's intact. I have hostiles holed up and I need suppression, over."

He anxiously waited the agonizing seconds for a reply as he made his way into the backyard of the house, nearly tripping over an overturned childrens bicycle as his weapons searched the overgrown hedges for targets.

"_This is Aeira Four Oh to Breaker One Nine. Copy, we have a 130 mm HEAT round on the way, hunker down. Squad Eight is moving up to meet you…." _The radio fizzed out as a Viper screamed overhead with its twin cannons making a machine like ripping noise as it strafted an enemy position several blocks away as it flashed by, quickly chased by an alien teardrop fighter.

Nadell cursed as he hit the ground and just as the Main gun from a Type 800 Main Battle Tank just down the street fired in a tremendous crack.

Nearly instantly a huge wave of overpressure and a sonic boom hit him as the high explosive round ripped into the occupied house, nearly bursting Nadell's eardrums as the round exploded inside the house, tearing it apart with a burst of flames and shrapnel.

Rolling back up blinking as the shell shock passed over him, Nadell turned to see the burning remains of the house, now half collapsed.

"Danger Close my ass." He thought aloud as he took up a position amongst the new cover that the debris provided, awaiting for Squad Eight's arrival, taking a brief breather as he kept his head down, watching the tumultuous roar and hell of battle as the Colonial Forces, spearheaded by a dozen tanks and Infantry Assault Vehicles with their supporting foot soldiers pushed their way through the bloody fighting.

His radio crackled to life.

"_Friendlies on your six."_

The Eighth Squad.

Getting up and waving his hand from what remained of the collapsed roof he signaled to the six troopers in their usual forest green BDU's came up and took their positions beside him.

He couldn't help but notice that they were short a man.

He turned to face the squad leader, a Gunnery Sergeant with the last name Mendan above his stripes and a dark face that looked as if he had been through hades itself.

"Glad to see you sir, Private 1st Class Nadell."

The man nodded with a grunt.

"Its good to see something that doesn't look like its out of a horror movie for once, where is your squad private?" he asked a Colonial Gunship swooped overhead, its cannons barking as Artillery thundered in the distance.

"Gone. Lost them to two of those 8 ft armored reptilian split lipped aliens, Took five men to take them out."

"Shit. There smaller ones are cannon fodder but those bastards have personal energy shields and boy can they fight. It took a full clip of AP from my Rifle and Jordan's over there to overload them and put it down, crazy fuckers. I still cant believe it."

Nadell nodded.

"Whats the situation with our forces?"

"Shit we just started pushing them out of Olympia and towards city core, however any units that advanced closer to the city center and that went out of the cover of any tall buildings or the terrain simply got lazed by the damn alien ship, the only thing we can do is secure the suburbs of the city for now before command thinks of something, so only infantry units could even get close to the city center, and air support is not an option. I hear they killed any civilians left in the streets on sight."

Nadell was about to ask another question before one of the other men in the squad shouted in alarm.

"Contacts! More of them and I see vehicles!"

The Colonials all slammed into their cover and readied their weapons as a wave of the dog like aliens raced across the open field of a nearby park that separated the neighborhood from a set of burning apartments, their howls and shrieks making Nadell cringe inside as he lined up his sights as the aliens neared within 50 meters and began firing bolts of plasma towards them.

"Let 'em have it!" Mendan roared as the men obliged.

A hail of much more accurate bullets from the Colonial Troopers cut into their ranks as Nadell fired his rifle on semi auto, taking down another Alien Grunt as nearly a dozen of their limp bodies covered the ground before they began to pull back , their return fire having yielded little in the way of accuracy.

One man in his late twenties enthusiastically shouted, "Shit that was easy.."

Suddenly a blue simmering prong of energy shot through the air right behind the man and the squad's cover, neatly bisecting the man's head as a shimmer in the air appeared from out of nowhere from behind their cover.

"Shit!" He screamed as he and the other men reacted, hastily trying to find a target as the shimmer in the air shifted and raced towards a new victim.

"What the frak?!" Mendan yelled in alarm as the Colonials all began spraying frantic shots at the unknown object, which to shimmered into existence as a bullet hit it, causing a huge 8 foot tall aliens to appear, holding a blue flaming energy blade in one hand and an odd looking two pronged weapon in the other.

Letting out a screeching and haunting roar the white armored alien surged forward at an alarming speed, its shields an electric wall of fire as it all but ignored the rounds slamming into it and with a viscous slash neatly hacked off one of the trooper's head, which tumbled to the ground like a ball.

At the same time it expertly aimed its pronged weapon that discharged a bolt of energy, slamming into another soldier straight in the chest , all but ignoring body armor and cutting off the woman's brief cry of pain before twisting its body around in a blur or shocking speed, avoiding several other burst of gunfire and sending another two energy bolts, violently ending the existence of another man with an electronic sounding wine as the weapon discharged and the stench of burning ozone and flesh filled Nadell's nostrils.

Mendan, Nadell and the remaining two soldiers unleashed a wall of bullets along with screams of insults that finally cut through its personal energy shields and filled its torso full of ragged blue blooded bullet holes as the creature let out one last gurgling battle cry before collapsing to the dirt and rubble.

Nadel could only stare at the alien's beady black eyes, unable to break his focus on them as they stared back at him.

He couldn't shake the feeling that its mandible's were in the form of a creepy semblance of a smile.

Seargant Mendan slapped him on his back to welcome him back to reality, grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him around to face him.

"We need to get moving soldier! They are coming back again!"

Nadell numbly nodded as he took one last look of the alien corpse, surrounded by the bodies of three Colonials and strewn upon the wreckage like ragdolls, before he turned back to the fight.

_**4**__**TH**__** Armored Company**_

_**3**__**rd**__** Mechanized Brigade- Colonial Army Defense Forces**_

_**Type 800 Main Battle Tank**_

"Load! Sabot! Target at 500 meters, dead on our twelve!" Tank commander Samanthia Fellion all but shouted to the crew of her 40 ton Type 800 Main Battle Tank as on her video screen she aimed the reticule of the 130mm main gun at one of the blue beetle like hovering tanks that the Covenant had rounded out from behind the cover of a collapsed building in the ruined financial district of Olympia and lobbed one of those blue arching lances of energy at her tank and another Type 800 that was alongside her.

The other tank's crew had been too slow, its armor and size doing nearly nothing to protect it as the plasma had cored through it to set off the main magazine deep within.

The fires from the downed tank still lit up her thermals like a flare, making them nearly useless.

After an hour of fighting these Covenant she and the other surviving tanks in her Company, which was now down to 65 percent of its strength, had learned to shoot and move to a new position as fast as possible or end up a burning melted ruin.

"Loaded!" her gunner shouted as she took over command of the targeting herself, the man having long stopped caring about who was able to take the shots, merely happy that they were alive to take them.

On her screen's she watched as the enemy vehicle turned to face her, its strange main weapon charging with energy and electricity as it prepared to lob another bold of energy at her.

"Frak you." She whispered, remembering that her two kids had been missing since the invasion began before she pressed down on the firing stubs.

The tank lurched suddenly as the tremendous force of the 130 mm main gun spat out a ball of flame and sent a dart of tungsten into the Covenant vehicle.

Even inside the tank with its foot of composite armor the muffled thundering crack could be heard as much as it was felt.

The Covenant tank lurched as the supersonic round slammed into it, tearing deep into its extremely dense armor as it wildly fired its weapon ,discharging its energy gun into the side of a nearby building as the impact caused it or its gunner to misfire, melting the side of the office building clean off.

The enemy machine righted itself however, despite a huge ugly gash having been torn in its front sloping plate of armor as it angrily sent a stream of energy from its secondary weapons at Samanthia's tank, stitching its armor and burning through the outer layer of armor before she ordered the tank to move to a new position.

The tank barreled through and over several abandoned cars and debris as her gunner fired her coaxial 12.7 mm machine gun in return at the enemy as it turned to track her tank as the rounds all but sparked and bounced off of the armor to no effect.

"Give me another shot! Sabot. Load!"

"Loading!" the gunner shouted as the driver up front threw the tank around a corner at 30 miles an hour down a side street away from the enemy, the rubber padded treads briefly squealing before they found their grip, nearly causing Samanthia to fallout of her seat before catching herself.

The Colonial tank disappeared down the small side street just as another lance of plasma discharged from the alien vehicle, vaporizing a large portion of the street where Samanthia's tank had just been before it disappeared behind the cover of a building.

The autoloader spun as quickly as its servos could as another 130 mm shell was loaded into the chamber of the main gun before the breach slammed shut.

"Rotate the turret 180 degrees! Cover our ass!" she shouted, they are going to follow us and finish us off.

"Yes sir!" her gunner, Averi replied as the 28 year old Caprican rotated the turret to face the rear of the tank and aimed it down the narrow side street as Samantia looked through her video screen back down the street they came, waiting for her opportunity as the realization dawned on her that her shot would more than likely not disable or destroy her opponent before it hit them.

The armor on those alien machines were tough to punch thorugh

She had to act fast.

"All stop, idle the engine and pop smoke, we are gonna try and get them as close as we can." She announced as Averi looked at him, partly checking to make sure is headphones were operating correctly.

"Are you crazy!"

"Yep! Do you wanna see what I do if you don't comply?" she replied half jokingly as the crew paused a second before nodding.

"All stop, idling Turbines, popping smoke."

"Switch to thermals." She ordered as the huge jet turbine engine that powered her tank powered down and began to only emit a low purring noise as it idled, hopefully making her tank look as if it were damaged or malfunctioning on thermals.

The dull colors of thermal imagine came online as the smoke choked the small two way street and the Colonial Main Battle Tank disappeared in its own fog bank.

"_Come on."_ She breathed as Samanthia swallowed her fear and waited an agonizing amount of time for her opportunity.

The colors and outlines or the buildings in her view suddenly shifted as the unmistakable form of the Covenant hover tank came into view, the thing actually strafed into a position facing straight down the street, the hellish energies of its main weapon built up and searching for a target.

"Come on you bastard." Averi breathed as his finger hovered over the firing studs.

"Not yet! Let it get as close as you can and aim for the damaged part of the armor where we last hit it." She unnecessarily whispered as the man nodded nervously.

The alien tank's commander or whatever the hell was in charge of that thing slowly made its way up the street with its secondary weapons on either side of its hull searching for targets.

"80 yards." Averi called off as Samanthia wiped a bead of sweat from her brow.

It came close and closer.

She had no way of knowing what sort of technology they had to see through the smoke if any, for all she knew it could have X-ray vision or something that was up until thirteen hours ago considered laughable.

"60 Yards."

"Steady."

Now it began to make its way into the cloud bank, its weapons burning white hot on her thermal screen.

"Frak its right on top of us! 30 yards! Its about to come through our smoke screen!" Averi shouted as Samanthia sternly replied back.

"Fire on my mark!" she ordered as the two glued themselves to their screens as Averi ever so slowly shifted the turret by inches to fire where they wanted to hit.

Then like a demon from some horror story the enemy tank appeared through the fog, not twenty yards away as its main weapon glowed white hot ready to burn them through.

"Fire!" She all but screamed as Averi slammed his thumbs down on the firing studs.

The video screen simply went white as she forgot to turn them off of the thermals as the flames from the barrel unleashed their deadly energies as the tank rocked with the supersonic crack.

The Tungsten penetrator barely had time to shed its Sabot as it left the Tank's barrel only to hit instantly right on target.

Averi's aim could not have been more dead on.

The dart sliced right through the damaged section of the enemy tank and into the delicate parts within.

The alien tank, which the Colonials would soon learn to call a Wraith, and a standard one at that; slewed sideways as the incredible shift in momentum tore into it.

Its repulsar lifts gave out as it slammed into the pavement before its main reactor blew.

The fleeing Colonial tank, now accelerating as fast as its turbines would carry it and 30 yards away rocked suddenly as its driver veered into and through a maintenance van before correcting himself as the Covenant tank turned into a white ball of fire and plasma, burning the buildings and abandoned shops nearby and creating yet another new crater in the surface of the planet while Samanthia and her crew cheered like madmen.

"Get us back to friendly forces! Command is needing us to reinforce a platoon nearby and more enemies are on the way. Our artillery is about to level this area and we have plenty of more bastards to kill."


	12. Chapter 12

_**Battlestar Galactica**_

_**Battle Star Group 75**_

_**Orbit of Tauron Satellite of Minos**_

_**Helios Alpha System**_

"Exiting FTL!" Lieutenant Gaeta called out as the old Battlestar tore itself from FTL fold into an orbit close to the extremely thin mesosphere of Tauron's single large moon.

"Action Stations! Action Stations! DRADIS sweep and I want our Vipers in the tubes ready to launch at a moment's notice!" Adama barked as the crew all raced about completing their tasks as the klaxons with their older style of wail rang throughout the ship as Adama calmly watched the Threat display.

"We are in a low orbit of Minos sir, nearly on the dark side of the moon. Reports from DRADIS coming in now. And sir we are getting a ton of chatter." Dee and Geata announced as the 1423 meter long warship's five main ion drive flashed and accelerated the ship closer into the gravity of the moon in an attempt to both hide behind it and mask its DRADIS profile.

"What have you got?" Adama sternly asked as the Admiral kept his eyes locked on the DRADIS scans.

"Gods, im reading reports of heavy fighting in the main cities and reports and signitures of multiple orbit to surface bombardments of urban centers and nuclear detonations in and in low atmospheric orbit. From what I can tell the 3rd Army under command of General Levent is heavily engaged in the outskirts of Hypathia where they are encountering fierce resistance. Everything else is garbled sir and there is hardly any civilian traffic, I am assuming the worst. But we are about to loose all communications as we are nearing the dark side of the moon."

As Geata finished Adama was already planning his next moves.

"Launch Boomer in a Raptor and have her act as a relay between us and the planet, full blackout and with her FTL's spooled up, and I want the same for us."

"Affirmative sir." Gaeta replied.

_**UNSC Wink of an Eye**_

"Sir Our sensors just picked up a brief and muffled burst of Cherenkov radiation from the dark side of the colony's moon, believed to be a Colonial FTL jump." Fallon called out as Branson nodded in silent thought as he brooded in his commander's seat, reading yet more readouts from the Covenant fleet as they laid siege to Tauron.

Their surprise attack on the CCS Battlecruiser had only delayed them from destroying the primary defensive battlestation and anchorage , and while dealing heavy damage to the alien warship and catching the Covenant with their pant's down, had only briefly taken the alien warship out of the fight and failed to wholly destroy it.

Their position compromised Branson had to make the call not to finish the massive thing off, as any attempt would have been swatted away with the alien's sending out even larger search parties of Seraphs and scans from their warships that were trying to find him.

And if they did they would last about ten seconds in a stand up fight.

"Haverson take us closer so our sensors can have a look, I am tired of being in this damned graveyard anyway." He ordered as he took another look out of the bridge windows and the port and starboard viewscreens.

The shattered shell of a Colonial Heavy Battlestar drifted past not a mile off of the prowler's starboard side, the blackened and holed bulk all but dwarfing the tiny Prowler in its shadow and radar profile, one that Branson had ordered to hide behind and next to after his attack on the Covenant Battlecruiser.

"Aye sir." Haverson called out as he fired a brief burst from the ship's maneuvering thrusters to stop the tumble that matched the ballistic course of the ruined wreck and debris around them.

"Baffles operating at 90 percent, getting us out of this mess."

The Prowler slowly pushed itself away from the tumbling mass of metal and steel that would soon cover the sector, as the huge number of dead, bisected, melted or outright obliterated vessels, nearly all of them Human Colonials, drifted away.

"Eighty Two ships for twelve of theirs….." he whispered aloud as Fallon's avatar dipped his head.

"I've worked out that the Colonials may be able to improve their odds if they use their FTL drives superior ability to make short ranged jumps to jump into close range when engaging the Covenant, and In my spare time I have managed to make approximations on the equations that they may need to do so and keep a relative formation, though it will have to be adapted to their systems."

Branson turned to face the AI in surprise.

"How have you managed to do that? UNSC inter system jumps are hard enough to do and have to be pre plotted at least five minutes in advance and that's pushing it for the stress factors."

"From what I can decipher on how these Colonial FTL drives work they only need to imput an approximation of coordinates into their navigation systems in order to jump without having to account for the, lets say "surprises" of traveling in a different dimension." The AI replied with a grin.

"Those sure as hell would be nice for us to have."

"No doubt, but they have the drawbacks of VERY high consumption of their fuel source and are very energy intensive and need significant time to recharge and cool down, not to mention plot a jump. Most large military vessels have two of them so they could jump in and jump out, but as the Covenant have proven, Slipspace can be much, much faster and more efficient."

Branson nodded as he pulled up the most recent scans and reports.

"What of the situation groundside and the Colonial's response in the system?"

"Groundisde the situation is as bad as you can guess. Multiple orbital bombardments on population centers and military bases. And the Covenant seem to be focusing their ground assault on two of the larger population centers on two of the major continents. From what little I can gather the Colonial response has managed to halt their advance but now they are at a standstill as the Covenant are using air superiority of their ships to simply blast anything that comes close. Its starting to get nasty down there. The only bright spot is that the Covenant have far fewer forces than the Colonials, despite the bombardments and the Colonials seem to be prepared somewhat for such an event with underground motor pools and barracks, allowing them to still operate. However as their lines cant move forward and the Covenant with the clear technological advantage the lines are beginning to look like something out of the first World War. Both sides seem to be digging in and waiting for reinforcements. Civilian populations losses are estimated as extreme."

"Well all civilian traffic towards the colony is cut off and the Colonials are building up a very large reactionary force in between the orbit of Caprica/ Gemanon and Tauron in deep space here." The AI highlighted the region of deep space on the tactical viewer as it pulled up the latest from the ship's sensor suite, though at that range they were five minutes old.

"Eighty eight ships and counting in the reaction fleet not including reinforcements above the other three worlds; and the forces above the capitol planet in particular are swelling in size even more so. They will no doubt be launching a counter assault soon."

"If they can attack fast and use my calculations they would have a roughly 68 percent chance of success if their force adds ten more ships. However the Covenant will no doubt soon have reinforcements flowing in within a day or so."

Branson inwardly winced at that.

There was no telling how soon Covenant reinforcements would arrive. It could either trickle in as a couple of ships at a time or in one gigantic fleet. There was no telling how long the Colonials would have. They could retake the Colony only to have a much larger fleet just appear and wipe out another. And there were also three more home systems for them to defend.

"Sir I have a positive ID on the ship!" Lieutenant Haverson called out as the Prowler eclipsed the curve of the large moon after roughly ten minutes of travel.

"What have we got?"

"Colonial sir. Battlestar class, one of the older ones I assume, roughly 1300 meters in length, not their largest sir."

_"And a ship that's larger than a Marathon by 80 meters is now small? Despite the obvious firepower disparity"_ he thought.

Fallon took control of the optical scopes and zoomed in on the Battlestar roughly 60,000 kilometers away and hugging the thin atmosphere of the moon as it tried to hide its large profile.

Branson looked over the array of armor and weapon ports and its hangar pods as he noticed the large writing on the bow of the Colonial human warship.

"Fallon could you perhaps…."

The AI was already there, "The name is the _Galactica_ sir." The AI answered with a slight grin on its avatar.

"Thank you Fallon." Branson smugly replied.

"They sure know how to name 'em I'll give them that. _Galactica_, pretty badass name." Haverson said aloud to the silent glances of the other officers at work at their stations.

"Sir the ship is launching one of their Gunboat's probably loaded down with ECM and ECCM to act as a communication to the planet and relay what it hears back to the Battlestar so it doesn't have to reveal its position."

"Covenant fleet status?" he asked as he kept his eyes glued to the forward viewport as the Prowler fired another short burn from its main thrusters to correct its course.

"Holding their position sir high orbit around the planet. They are simply holding their complete orbital supremacy and are busy mopping up any stations, ships or satellites that they can target. However one Corvette must have also picked up their signal and they are closing in." Fallon replied as the Colonial gunship with a final burn from its engines positioned itself in a geostationary orbit just above the terminus line of the moon as it went dark and began to use itself as a dish to pick up transmissions from the planet.

Haverson was about to open his mouth to say something when the sensor beeped again with the pinging of a new contact.

The man leaned over his station as his hands danced across his keyboard and its controls as he looked in closer.

"Sir I have something else. Its coming from the surface of the moon. Looks to be from one of the military bases on the surface, and I am getting a faint distress signal."

"Why haven't the Covenant bothered with them then? There are two good sized bases down there and dozens of mining colonies." Branson asked as he brought up the information on his personal screen.

"Probably because they didn't have much to hurt them with and they were so focused on the planet and its defensive fleet that they didn't have to take them out. There are dozens of heavy nuclear missile silos on that moon but none appear to have been launched, I can only guess that they were unable to attain an accurate target lock at the time of the battle and now its too late to use them on the enemy in orbit of Tauron, if they even made the trip." Fallon replied as the AI worked through the communications systems to decipher the message.

"Four point three seconds, not my best time sir but here you go."

The speakers in the headrest of his captain seat sizzled with static for a second before forming into crisp words.

"….._This is Admiral Corman to any and all available Colonial Forces. I and my staff evacuated the Defense Station HQ and have set up temporary command on Minos at Ft. Branderhorn near the pole. All civilians have begun pouring into available emergency centers on the moon from the mining colonies and outposts. We have begun entrenching ourselves with any Vacuum Combat suits we have going to Marines who are setting up defensive positions around the perimeter. Our anti orbital battery of Nuclear Missiles are all still in the silos and our air defenses are online. However we only have a few Vipers and Raptors at our disposal, so as of now we are keeping quit and monitoring the situation. If we plan on retaking Tauron we must hold this moon. We will keep monitoring the situation and….."_

Branson cut the link as he stole a glance at the CIC.

"Status on the Covenant Corvette, they had to have heard that."

_**Battlestar Galactica**_

"_This is Boomer, I can relay you that message again sir and try and clean it up a bit, they are sending out minimal DRADIS scans to try and avoid detection, and as they are on the opposite side they probably don't know we are here."_ Boomer's voice echoed throughout the CIC as Adama took a glance at the tactical displays.

Adama began weighing his options.

"Geata what is the position of the enemy fleet?"

"All are in a high orbit, they are just holding their positions for now on orbital overwatch, and they are providing limited support for the invasion, but otherwise nothing."

Adama nodded. "Alright bounce a signal off of Boomer and direct it at the base. We need to let them know we are here and if possible get any updates that we can on the enemy's progress planet side…"

The Rear Admiral didn't get to finish his sentence as Dee cut him off with a worried shout.

"Boomer has a contact! Incoming Covenant warship, it's a smaller contact that just jumped in about 20,000 kilometers from Minos. It looks like they are going to finish off the Base and the colonies down there."

"Frak, we need to get Corman at the very least off of that rock." Tigh growled as the Klaxons began to wail.

"Set condition one and launch our Vipers now, they can rendezvous with us on the far side and give the base some cover. We need to cover their retreat the best we can and pull them off of that rock." Adama ordered as he turned to Tigh.

"Have both pods prepped to receive shuttles and craft in the starboard hangar bay, we will squeeze as many of them in there as we can without compromising our ability to recall our Vipers. "

Tigh nodded as he ran to the other side of the cramped CIC and began coordinating the flight ops as Adama took one last look at the DRADIS.

"I want all our weapons hot with all of our nukes in the tube. Ready the gunnery crews and have them ready to go the moment we get a lock. And plot us a jump via Boomer's Raptor to get us as close as we can to that thing. We can mitigate some of our losses that way the best we can if we jump in right down their throats."

"Aye sir Vipers launching. Second flight is out and entering a low orbit burn. All craft away!"

Adama gripped his hands in anticipation.

"Jump."

_**Covenant Light Corvette **_

_**Hand Of the Follower**_

"Shipmaster we have identified the location of a defiler's base near the pole of the moon, our weapons are targeting, range at 20,000 units. No sign of any Lesser Human activity." The Demos Elite at the controls of the Corvette's scanners called out as Shipmaster Huranee nodded in understanding.

"Prepare a barrage from our laser banks and secondary Plasma canons. Sweep them over the base and burrow them into the surface to destroy any who may be cowering under the surface." He ordered as he stepped away from the huge globe like holographic projection of the corvette's location relative to the large moon with the human settlements and bases highlighted in red.

The Fleetmaster had ordered his ship to wipe out the human presence on their moon in preparation for the unenviable Colonial counter attacking fleet which was growing by the hour and waiting out of range in deep space to strike back and make their feeble attempt to take back their world.

Huranee didn't even know why they were leaving half of a planet for them to take back in the first place, a simple glassing of the human pestilence off of the world would have been much easier but instead the Fleetmaster had ordered a ground invasion and to wait for reinforcements, reinforcements that would only begin to trickle in in the next couple of days as the Hierarchs were convinced that the greater prize was here, rather than to make another attack on the UNSC greater humans at their now abandoned world of Harvest and their forces they had there.

But he wasn't in the position to question his orders, he was simply glad that we could get a break from offering orbital support for the ground invasion and take out this outpost.

"Lock on nearly achieved for our main weapons. We have a firing solution. Wait…. Human missiles are rising from the surface to strike us. Shall I intercept ?" the weapons officer asked from his station on the far side of the circular bridge.

Huranee looked at the growing rocky moon that now filled the viewscreen and the fore of the bridge to see the small twinkle of half a dozen lights lifting from the surface of the moon and angle to hit them, rising as fast as their primitive boosters would push them.

"He chuckled, yes."

Two seconds later a brief barrage of pulses from six directed energy beams simply erased missiles.

"Fools, why don't they lay down and die already as befits them?" one of the other major demos asked before the sensor officer began shouting in alarm.

"We have a contact coming in…."

The Sangheilli didn't get to finish its sentence before a brief and bright filed the viewscreen before out of nowhere a Colonial warship three times his Corvette's size appeared not three hundred miles away.

For a full second he stared with his mandables open before the enemy warship fired, breaking him from his revile.

"Return fire! Blast those heathens from the heavens!" he roared just as the first heavy rounds from the _Galactica's_ 24 heavy cannons struck the shields.

_**CIC Battlestar Galactica**_

"Fire at will, full salvo. Fire everything we got. Position ourselves in between them and the moon as best as we can and get us in closer. Full military thrust!" Adama ordered as Tight scrambled to the gunnery station perched towards the front of the CIC as he angrily pointed at one of the displays.

"You got a red light! Come on don't waste our time! Clear that jam!"

The CIC was an erie mixture of calm and chaos as lieutenants cried out status updates and reports as the ship buckled under them.

"Multiple hits on target. Target is undamaged Repeat undamaged! Visuals confirm energy shielding!" Geata called out just as the _Galactica_ shook dramatically beneath them as the Covenant Corvette angrily fired in return as it recovered from its momentary surprise.

Six blue beams of directed energy tore from the main laser banks of the Corvette and instantaneously cored into the thick hide of the 40 year old warship.

Battleplate designed to withstand the direct hit of a capitol grade nuke superheated and expanded as several sections gave in, allowing bursts of energy to core into the thinner secondary hull just beneath , opening up two breaches in the hull as buffs of atmosphere escaped into space as emergency hatches sealed shut.

"Hull breaches in decks 12 and 8 on the bow and the lateral superstructure! Sealing off decks!"

With Klaxons blaring a warning Adama glanced up from the DRADIS display at the angry red enemy icon to the damage readouts before returning his gaze to the tactical readouts.

"Seal them shut and keep at it." He grunted as another trio of lasers played over the hull of the Battlestar.

The Battlestar by this time maneuvered to directly face the enemy some 8,000 miles away as another and then another salvo of shells and slugs from its primary batteries opened up on the much smaller Covenant ship. Shields flared in an electrical storm as yet more high velocity rounds expended themselves against the barriers with little effect, although the Covenant ship was visually knocked off its course by a half a mile from the sheer brute force as it came around to bring its flanks to face the _Galactica_.

"Enemy is circling to our starboard side, its trying to go over us." Tigh growled as he caught himself as another half a dozen Pulse lasers scorched the hull, taking out one of the point defense batteries on the starboard flight pod.

William Adama gripped his hands on the tactical table as he turned to the crew.

"Keep up the substained fire Saul. Where the frak are our birds!?"

"Coming up from the poles of the moon now. ETA two minutes. Ft. Branderhorn has received our broadcast and is going to try and render some nuclear aid." Dee answered as the Admiral nodded.

"Spin us so our main batteries are always on target. Get ready for a nuclear launch mission!"

At this point the Corvette and Battlestar, both of them going at their full burns, were a mere 7,000 kilometers from each other and at near visual range just as the much more nimble Covenant Corvette spun on its axis and brought its three plasma cannons on its flanks to bare on the _Galactica_, all the while taking hit after hit from the Battlestar's main guns and seemingly ignoring them.

A trio of bright blue pulses of high energy plasma and magnetically guided gas tore away from the Corvette and struck the Battlestar on her starboard side of her bow near her flight bod.

The bolts slammed into the armor which burned white hot and crumpled inwards, absorbing the physical impacts like they were designed to, yet by the time it was over it was clear that the severe temperature had significantly reduced their effectiveness as another and another barrage of bolts impacted the Galactica as orange streaking slugs from the Battlestar returned the favor against the alien's shields.

"We have damage on the starboard flight pod and one of our launch tubes is gone. Still no visible damage to the enemy ship." Geata called out as a console overloaded in a shower of sparks.

"This old girl can take it. Keep it up!" Adama cried as he watched the DRADIS contact rapidly approach.

"Where are those Vipers?" Tigh shouted as Dee answered his question for him.

"Starbuck and squadron three are coming in hot!"

Adama scowled in response, "Tell her to pull out once they fire off their missiles and hang back to provide any fighter cover for the base. I don't want them to get caught in the crossfire and anything short of their nukes wont do a thing."

"Aye sir."

Another line of pulse lasers and strobes of plasma bolts slammed into the _Galactica_, this time causing another large hull breach and a fire near her forward water tanks as a lucky laser scored a direct hit on one of her aft main turrets, simply coring through it with a large explosion as fires quickly died in the cold vacuum.

The crew were thrown to the floor nearly as the ship shuddered with the impact.

"Seal those decks and get the damage control on it now!" Tigh ordered as he and Adama pulled themselves up.

"Fire off our anti-ship missiles and follow it up with a full time to target barrage Mr. Geata." Adama ordered.

"All of them sir? Our lock is fuzzy but I managed to attain one." He replied as the ship rocked again with yet another impact.

"Launch them now! Full barrage!"

One of the improvements the _Galactica _had managed to get from her refit was a full blown tripling of her anti ship missile racks, from 12 tubes to 36 along her lateral prow.

As one they opened up and launched at the rapidly closing blue twinkling light of the enemy as the ghostly contrails tore away from the Battlestar and accelerated towards the enemy ship, followed closely with a single full salvo from the Galactica's main guns.

Only half of the missiles made it as the Covenant's pulse lasers switched to their fast tracking modes and burned them from the sky in a display of accuracy that would make any Colonial commander jealous given the short time they had to react to the missiles.

The missiles covered the shields of the Corvette in electrical fury as they tried to overload the burning bright electric energy blister , which still shifted and remained translucent as the full on salvo hit.

This time the shields finally relented as the tremendous amount of energy it had already taken proved too much and the last three slugs tore through them to slam into the hull beneath.

One managed a direct hit on the bulbous head of the craft while the other two hit amid ships, tearing into the hull and finally managing to draw blood as the brief explosion of escaping atmosphere from several decks tore several Covenant into the void and the effected area of the head of the ship crumpled from the impact of the large round.

"Visible damage!" Geata cried out as Adama inwardly cringed.

It had taken them seven full salvos of weapons fire from their main guns and a full spread of their heavy missiles to just damage them, an amount of firepower that would have devastated any Colonial warship, and it was still active.

A case driven home as another pulse laser barrage tore into the _Galactica_, this time coring into a previously damaged battle plate and boring right through the bow of the ship and striking one of the Old Girl's water tanks.

Alarm bells wailed as the crew struggled to hold themselves up as water jetted out into vacuum to freeze instantaneously as another trio of plasma pulses slammed into the engine block, knocking out a group of thrusters as a deck near the stern gave in and opened up to vacuum along the outer hull, sucking out three engineers into vacuum before the airlocks sealed a second too late.

"Sir we cant take much more of this!" Geata called out as Tigh again directed the damage control teams from his station.

All the while Adama watched the DRADIS contact get within visual range.

He made up his mind as another salvo of heavy rounds hit the reconstituted energy shields of the Corvette, most of them being deflected as another three punched through to cause more damage as a strange blue gas escaped from the lateral surface of the enemy ship.

He was confident they could finish it off but with the _Galactica_ sustaining more damage than was necessary. He could gun down this ship but be left with too much damage to cover the retreat, as no doubt the Covenant would send reinforcements. And all the while he had to remind himself that this was a lighter enemy escort ship, not armed with the reported energy torpedoes that the others clearly carried and with weaker energy shields, as the first disastrous battle of Tauron had taught the Colonial Defense Forces that their defensive barriers only scaled up with the size of the ship.

"Tigh Nuclear launch mission! Retract the flight pods now and dry launch our heaviest nuke we have, I want it to remotely detonate just as that bastard comes up along side us!" the Admiral ordered as the crew turned to look at him like he had gone mad.

"But sir we would be caught in the blast at that range!" Geata replied as Tigh with a nod rushed to insert his key into his slot to authorize a launch.

The old man's gaze bore into the lieutenant as if he were threatening a mutiny.

"Do it."

"Aye sir, retracting pods and launching nuke."

As another barrage of rounds slammed into the Covenant ship, this time causing much more noticeable wounds as the alien ship returned the favor, the iconic flight pods retracted into their safe position used to transit into FTL or under heavy fire; all the while a large anti shipping nuclear missile tumbled away from the accelerating warship propelled only by the short burst from its launch rail.

The two foes still trading fire Adama watched as he counted on the Aliens to act just as over-aggressive as they had in the past recorded engagements, something he could turn against them as the two ships tore across the distance seemingly head on at breakneck speed.

"Sir they are going to come head on! Adjust pitch to…"

"Keep her steady and keep firing!" Adama cut the helmsman off as the ship shook again from yet another series of wounds dealt from the Covenant energy weapons as the lights in the CIC flickered.

"Impact in fifteen seconds!" Tigh called out as the forward viewer switched to show the small sea creature like form of the Covenant corvette seemingly speed directly at the camera, the damage it had taken clearly visible, the bluish haze of gas and atmosphere from a torn conduit making it all the more menacing looking.

"Batteries don't have an angle!" Geata called as the seconds ticked off.

"Roll us thirty degrees to port! Emergency thrusters! Rotate batteries to fire as they pass by and detonate that nuke Mr. Geata!" William Adama ordered with a strange sense of calm, merely nodding as he did so.

"Detonating!" , Geata breathed as the _Galactica's _ emergency thrusters pushed her onto a new course while her main batteries swiveled to hit the Covenant ship.

A brief new star appeared directly in front of the Battlestar in between it and the Corvette, blinding all sensors and causing the enemy ship to disappear as the energies and radiation of the blast wave of heat and particles hit the _Galactica_ , buffeting her slightly as the ship rocked with the impact and the lights throughout the warship flickered on and off as energy systems were pushed to the limit.

Adama, Tigh and the others in the CIC all gazed up at the DRADIS display, which was still blinded from the blast.

"Frak it go visual and tell the Gunners to go manual and fire at will." Tigh grunted as the DRADIS gave a shrill beep of a contact.

As one Adama, Tigh, Dee and Geata all looked up to see the unique sight of the red icon of the enemy warship completely covering up the origin point of the DRADIS scans and the _Galactica's_ own icon.

"Holy…." Tigh began to mutter as the speakers throughout the CIC came to life.

It was the gunnery crews, which for the rare occasion were manually operating their weapons, something that was a rarity.

"_Its right on top of us! Visible thermal damage! Frak unload on it!"_ one of the men in the forward most heavy turret cried as the Battlestar suddenly trembled.

The lateral viewers witched to show the Covenant ship sailing by not two kilometers away, with debris and damage visible as its systems appeared to flicker back to life.

The eerie glow from its weapons ports and engines again flickered on again just as the first shells of the Columbia class Battlestar's full broadside tore into its unprotected hull as it drifted past.

Magnetically accelerated slugs and high explosive shells tore into the ship. Decks exploded outwards in decompression and sections of the ship suddenly were sliced open as the outer hull dented and caved in to the immense kinetic force.

Even the _Galactica's_ auto cannons sent a stream of cannon fire into the dying shell for good measure as a second volley ripped deep into the guts of the alien warship, and hit something vital.

The cheers throughout the ship could be heard even in the darkest recesses of the warships storage bays as the Covenant ship broke apart in a violent blue hued explosion.

_**UNSC Wink of an Eye**_

"They got them sir!" Haverson cried as the crew breathed a collective sigh of relief as the Covenant Corvette shattered under the broadside from the Battlestar's main guns.

Somehow Branson felt the sense of victory himself, as if he were watching a UNSC Warship take out the enemy ship.

_I guess UNSC or not we are still human_

Snapping out of his train of thought he turned to Fallon as the AI's avatar faced him with a similar look of satisfaction.

"Sometimes its relieving to see a good old fashioned smackdown at point blank range. However I have detected multiple squadrons of Seraph single ships enter slipspace for a shot ranged jump. Those Colonials are about to have a shit storm hit them."

He had already made up his mind, regulations be damned Parangosky could relieve him of duty herself.

"Haverson take us in and take the safeties off of what weapons we have, we are going to give them what support we can." He ordered as the Colonial dart like fighters raced to intercept the emerging wings of rapidly closing Seraphs intent on blasting the Battlestar from the skies as everal shuttles broke from the surface to the awaiting Colonial warship.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Reach **_

_**Two Days after Covenant attack on Colonies**_

Admiral Preston Cole winced as the hot coffee he had been sipping spilled into his mouth faster than he had intended, burning his tongue as the hastily prepared French Vanilla creamer barely covered the poor brew that he had prepared after being awoken at three in the morning by an emergency message from High Com calling him to down from his flagship in high orbit.

"Sorry about that sir. The road has taken a beating recently from all of the drills the Army and Marines are running lately." The driver of the Warthog replied as the Admiral merely nodded.

"Its alright son, I would rather taste rubber than this crap anyway." Cole replied as he looked at his coffee again for a second before simply throwing it out of the open window with a huff.

The sun was just starting to peak over the mountains, which were beginning to be covered in the first snowfalls of Espoz's notorious winter season as the stars began to fade out of existence, though nearly half of them were actually the constellations of stations, Defense platforms and the shipyards that turned out nearly a hundred new warhips of every size each month to throw into the fight against the Covenant.

The Private's reply was driven home as the Warthog rounded a bend in the road to find a squadron of M-1000 Grizzly Heavy Tanks in a line travelling on the shoulder of the two lane highway. Their normally tan armored hides now turned to white as their reactive painting switched their color to match the recent snowfalls as their size dwarfed the diminutive Warthog and took up nearly the entire width of the highway.

The private, knowing that the Admiral was in need to arrive at ONI Sword Base soon, tore around the lumbering warmachines, if 45 miles an hour was lumbering, as the small Urban Warfare sensor suites on each turret of each tank just above the main 110 mm railgun tracked the vehicle and marked it as friendly after running a quick database check on the occupants.

"I don't know why the Army and Marines keep running this drills, if the Covenant win in Space then its all over anyway." The private as the road widened, just in time for a convoy of Cougar Armored Fighting Vehicles mounting dual 30mm Gauss Cannons escorting a huge military gun carriage that held a massive mobile surface to orbit M-HEMRG 3 Mass Driver on its back lumbered on by with several assorted support vehicles and several quad rotor observation drones hovering right above.

Cole turned to the Private, "Well that is one reason son. A battery of those gives us some firepower to hit them back from the surface, as with the larger Mass Drivers now being built into most bases."

The driver nodded as a small gust of wind rattled the Warthog, making Cole thankful they were in a model with an enclosed cabin.

The Warthog finally rounded the last turn as the solid sloping and featureless walls and main gate of ONI's Sword Base came into view.

"Lets see what this is all about." Cole thought inwardly.

**Twenty Minutes Later**

"So that is all that we know? Any ideas on how long they can last?" Admiral Cole asked as the five others present in the small briefing room located at least a mile under Sword Base shuffled in their seats.

As if on que the holo viewer morphed into a video showing several Colonial warships in orbit of a moon haplessly pounding away at a Covenant destroyer at visual range with every gun they had as the alien ship laughed it off, shields pulsing in electric fire as it simply fired two plasma lances that nearly bisected the smaller Colonial ship before the ship turned into an eyewatering nova as the other, larger human ship, a smaller battlestar lost its port hangar pod as explosive decompression tore through it.

"That was taken from extreme range from the _Red Horse_ before it left system as the battle started, heading straight for Harvest and the 2nd Fleet, arriving there yesterday as the message was sent via the mobile com launcher attached with the 2nd Fleet." Parangosky's elderly voice replied as the video cut off.

Along with himself sat Admiral Stanforth to his left, and General Kits to his left, the highest ranking Member of the Marine Corps on Reach at the moment. Across the table sat none other than Parangasky and Commander Ned Rich.

"So how bad will they fare?" Cole asked simply, though the video sure gave him an indication.

Stanforth simply sighed. "Not good. We usually fight the Covenant on a two to one ratio disadvantage at the best times despite our recent victory, but going off of our estimates of their technology base and how badly one of our damaged cruiser's mauled them, not good at all, we are looking at a five to one ration disadvantage at best. Sure they will get a few of them but at tremendous costs. As surely as we all know more and more Covenant ships will come into their systems and that will be the end of it."

All those present frowned for a brief moment at the thought of billions of humans burning at the hands of the Covenant.

"Just going on your facial expressions I am going to assume that you are not a fan of that conclusion to this plot." Parangosky spoke up as she coolly bore down each of the others expressions like a book.

After several seconds Ned Rich nodded, "Agreed ma'am."

"Good, because morally acceptable or not I have just seen a huge diversion for our forces for the time being that we can exploit ."

The realization dawned on the men as General Kits finally chimed in.

"Let me get this straight. We help the Colonials fight the Covenant so we can keep them focused on the Colonial's home systems and buy our own colonies in the invasion corridor more time along with our forces?"

Parangosky smiled as she turned to Cole.

"Yes, we and the rest of the Admiralty see this an opportunity. The Colonials, while technologically behind us, still are just advanced enough to put up a fight that regardless of the Covenant advance will take time, precious time that we can exploit to regroup our forces and prepare for the next Covenant assault on the Invasion Corridor. However if we do help these Colonials their chances for putting up a much longer "stalling" action against the Covenant increases, and will force the Covenant to divert more forces there and buy us even more time."

"But what about the Colonials themselves? They will likely be just as hostile towards us." Cole asked as Parangosky waved her hand.

"If they start shooting at you after you try to make contact then blow one or two of their ships apart and try again. If they need a lesson in respect of power then by all means don't be shy, but we still need their support otherwise this whole exercise is pointless. So use your best judgment."

"Yes ma'am." Cole replied as he leaned forward, "What forces will we be deploying?"

At that the woman smiled.

"We are giving your fleet all the newest tech we have, and every last one of them have been equipped with the new Plasma Barriers and reactant hull plating. As the Covenant appears to want to take these worlds we are giving you three Phoenix Class Planetary Assault Ships, _War Hymn, Melbourne, _and the _Spirit of Fire, _all loaded with the latest weaponry for the Marines. The list of the ships we are going to pull for this op are on your data pad."

"You may want to get with HIGHCOM and get you and the Fleet we are going to give you moving."

Cole nodded curtly, "Yes ma'am."

As Cole walked away he pulled out his personal data pad once the doors to the elevator closed.

Even he had to be impressed with the force allotted to him.

As the door closed Parangoski turned to the other admirals.

"Now what of these mysterious contacts around Harvest and the Epsilon Indi system?"

Rich shook his head as he pulled up a list of reports on data pad and with a flick transposed it onto the holographic table.

"Our commanders with the reinforcement fleets at Harvest don't know what it is, but with them just now being briefed on the Colonials the local commander, Admiral Terrance Hood, believes them to possibly be Colonials. Their FTL jumps and flashes of radiation and Gamma particles upon FTL exit match Colonial FTL technology seen thus far."

Parangosky looked at the map.

The contacts had all been small fighter sized contact that jumped into the edge of the now heavily fortified system before promptly dropping back out of the system before a UNSC ship could intercept, which was plenty of time as the 2nd and 10th fleet stationed to guard the now barren world were positioned close to the planet's gravity well.

"Epsilon Indi is far too far away from known Colonial space, but there is the possibility that they are conducting recon out this far for UNSC held worlds. I want our forces on the Invasion corridor to be briefed for a possible contact with the Colonials, even if both us and them are far more busy dealing with these xeno bastards."

The others all nodded.

"If the Colonials do decide to pay a visit to Epsilon Indi what is our procedure? Especially with the fleet we are sending to their home system?" Rich asked.

"Assume hostile until proven otherwise, get that on the Slipspace Com as soon as you can."

_**Combat Information Center**_

_**Battlestar Galactica**_

"More enemy fighters are coming in! They blew right through our first flight of Vipers sir! Lords they are quick!" Tigh shouted as the deck heaved under Adama.

"Get our flak fields established now!" Adama roared as yet another Covenant teardrop fighter shot over the bow of the Battlestar at incredible speeds, peppering the hull with its plasma cannons.

"They are sir! They are having limited effect! Only direct fire from our auto cannons is doing anything!" Lieutenant Geata shouted as the lights flickered for a second before returning to normal.

The Covenant fighters had managed to jump in right on top of them nearly, and the first CAP of Vipers the Galactica had launched had already taken heavy losses from the clearly superior craft, making Adama momentarily grateful the other half of the Viper contingent with Lee and Starbuck was providing escort for the base's shuttles evacuating from the surface.

"Order the autocannons to focus their fire, focus that flak on the targets individually only, there is too much danger of hitting our own people with little effect to those bastards."

"Aye sir!" the lieutenant replied as the wall of explosion surrounding the Battlestar flickered out of existence as the nimble Vipers tried to establish a perimeter around the vessel, dancing in a furious furball with the large and less maneuverable, but exceptionally quicker and tougher Covenant fighters.

Several Seraphs fell to streams of canon fire from a flight of Vipers, the 25mm slugs finally managing to beat down the shields and tear holes into the ship beneath, with one Seraph damaged while another suddenly spun out of formation leaking drive plumes as yet another turned into an eye watering smear in space. Yet another two were felled by a wall of slugs from the Galactica's starboard point defenses.

At the same time five Vipers were simply shattered or torn asunder by energy weapons fire from a streaking flight of angry Covenant fighters.

Adama watched on the DRADIS as two more of his fighters disappeared from the DRADIS as the pilots' last dying screams echoes through the wireless as he slammed his fist on the table.

At the same time another wing of the thrice accurse alien fighters appeared on the DRADIS, speeding towards the Galactica like sharks smelling blood.

"How much longer until those shuttles are aboard! Are any of the FTL capable?" he asked Tigh as the XO nodded while holding a handset in his other ear as he directed a damage control team.

"Three minutes at full burn! And none of them have FTL Admiral Corman's was the last one off." Dee cried out as the great warship moaned as a smaller plasma burst assailed one of the main engine blocks.

"The Covenant ships in orbit of Tauron are moving to intercept us sir! I have a contact incoming at long range, about 200,000 kilometers out and closing, battlestar sized contact!" Geata bellowed.

The CIC shook again as a Seraph slipped through the fighter screen and past the streams of cannon fire and added yet more damage to the worn hull of the warship.

"Hull breach on the port flight pod! Deck Five! Sealing bulkheads!" another officer called out as a much bigger boom rattled the ship.

"Explosive decompression! Agathon reports five deckhands are unaccounted for and ten more wounded!"

"Get a damage control team down there!" Tigh shouted as he picked up the handheld to organize the damage control teams.

"I want a full burn once those shuttles hit the deck. Slingshot maneuver us around the moon and back on course with deep space, and spin our drives up to jump with the rendezvous with Admiral Kaviss's fleet."

"New contacts! Thirty gunboat sized contacts with fifteen more fighter escorts! They are coming in fast!"

"Shoot those frakkers down!" Adama shouted as he took one look at the DRADIS display above him as angry red icons swarmed all around his ship while the icons of Vipers began to disappear at an alarming rate.

_**Viper Mk VI**_

_** Starbuck**_

"Die already!" Starbuck all but shouted as she held the firing stud on the top of her flight stick down, doing her best to stay on the tail of the much large teardrop of an alien craft as she pumped yet another long burst of 25mm KEWs onto the target.

Yet once more those accursed energy barriers flashed to life as her rounds harmlessly bounced off.

The alien fighter flipped around and fired a double burst of blue energy pulses as her, causing her cockpit to strobe with light as at the last second she slammed down the controls of her ventral maneuvering thrusters and shot "up" out of the line of fire with feet to spare.

"I've. Had. Enough!" Starbuck roared as she flipped the selector switch to her missiles which promptly got a lock.

Just as the advanced alien fighter's nose was tracking her diminutive little fighter to finish it off.

"Go to hell!" she cursed as Starbuck launched all four of the anti-fighter missiles on the Viper's stubby launch rails.

The Covenant fighter didn't have a chance to react as four contrails of flame almost immediately crossed the short distance as hit as one.

Normally such an action would have been an extreme example of overkill and would have the pilot being scolded for the waste of ammunition by the weapons chief, however against shielded enemy fighters it was just enough to do the job.

The Seraph disappeared in a cloud of fire as it went spinning away helplessly trailing blue drive plumes and debris, half of its frame snapped in two.

Satisfied with her kill She flipped her fighter over to race back into the real fight as she took stock of the situation.

It wasn't looking good.

The area of space all around the _Galactica_ was nothing but a constant mess of debris, ion drive plumes and streams of auto cannon rounds and flak and alien energy weapon pulses.

The wireless was so full of cries for orders, screams of victories and status reports that Starbuck had to localize her frequency.

"_Starbuck are you alive out there? We got to escort Admiral Corman's shuttle in."_ The voice of Lee Adama cut through the eerie silence as Starbuck flipped her fighter around the spinning wreck that was once a proud Viper, now holed by plasma.

"Im still here! We've got to blow a path through this shit storm." Starbuck replied as if on que Adama's Viper appeared on her right wing, some burns and scoring evident on its hull from near misses.

The Shuttle, a slow and ungainly target never the less was plowing straight towards the starboard flight pod at a full burn, or as fast as the craft could move as Vipers and Alien fighters shot past all around it.

She had to give the shuttle's pilots credit, they had brass ones.

"We do! On me! Targets coming in hot! From our six, they are going for the shuttle!" Lee shouted as Starbuck glanced at her DRADIS.

Sure enough two more of those bastard tear drop fighters had slingshotted around the fight, casually blasting one Viper out of the sky as they barreled straight at the shuttle on an intercepting angle, only miles away and seconds from turning the unarmed ship into molten debris.

The two Vipers slammed their turbos to the firewall, pouring refined tylium into their drives as rocketing forward before cutting their speed and flipping over to face the attackers, placing themselves between the attackers and Corman's shuttle.

"They are almost in range. Fire on the one of the right together, maybe we can drop its shields faster and have time to switch targets." Lee spoke as Starbuck nodded, her HUD switching its target selector to the indicated alien fighter.

"He we go." She breathed.

The seconds seemed to turn into hours as the stars spun around her and the barren surface of the moon Minos hung "below" her.

The Covenant fighters with their superior range and weapons could ave simply struck the Vipers from outside of their weapons range, but for some reason the pilots wanted to get up close and personal, which the Colonials were happy to oblige.

"Fire!" Lee shouted as he and Starbuck's Vipers, now flying "backwards" relative towards their opponents, sent a stream of 25 mm cannon fire at the targeted alien fighter.

The fact that the human pilots had chosen to target one of the alien fighters instead of two had taken the aliens by surprise, and as such the targeted Seraph didn't attempt to maneuver like it normally would have or even fire back.

Giving Lee and Starbuck an unprecedented three seconds of clear aim to pour the fire on it.

The force of two Vipers concentrated fire finally managed to bat down the shields just as the Covenant fighters, now only seconds from flashing by attempted to maneuver around them as the untargeted fighter fired a pulse of high velocity plasma at Lee, forcing him to frantically dodge out of the way and break off his fire as a bolt of plasma clipped the edge of his starboard wing, simply burning it off and nearly sending Adama's son spinning out of control.

"Frak!" Starbuck swore as she kept her nose locked on the first Covenant fighter, which was now barreling straight towards her with energy building from its weapons ports.

It was either going to take her out or ram her.

Without a thought she jammed the firing stud, the Viper ratting as its three auto cannons spat flame and slugs at the now unshielded enemy fighter.

The slugs chewed into the front of the teardrop fighter just as a pulse from the craft's weapons flashed forth.

She had no time to maneuver.

Starbuck's eyes were blinded with blue light as her heart caught in her throat.

It was over.

Death didn't come as she thought it would.

By a stroke of some remarkable luck the twin bolts of plasma went wide…past either side of the fuselage of the Viper with inches to spare as the temperature inside the cockpit briefly rose.

Her cannon shells on the other hand tore into nose of the Covenant fighter, apparently hitting something vital.

The craft exploded in a cloud of debris and bluish drive plumes as the debris and remnants of the Seraph rocketed past her, just barely avoiding her Viper.

"Shit!" she swore as she recovered her senses, taking in the situation.

"Lee are you alright!?"

Several seconds went by before her DRADIS picked up the icon of Apollo's Viper and his tinny voice over the wireless came through.

"Yeah I'm alright, bastard burned off nearly half of my starboard wing….The shuttle!" Lee shouted with realization.

The other Covenant fighter had blasted right by Starbuck.

Swearing and cursing Starbuck flipped the Viper around on its axis with her thrusters to see the shrinking form of the Covenant fighter charging right for the unarmed shuttle, intent on taking it out.

"Frak! I am not in range! No missiles left!"

"I cant intercept fast enough!" Lee shouted back as Apollo got on the wireless for the shuttle's pilot.

"_Get out of there! Repeat!"_

It was just at that moment as the Coenant fighter was not miles away from simply spearing the Admiral's shuttle with a burst of energy that everyone on the battle field was caught off of their guard.

Four red beams of light speared out, bisecting the darkness of space and the stars and hit the shields of the Covenant Seraph.

Its shields burned bright for two seconds as the beams pulsed at thousands of times a second, appearing like a continuous beam to the naked eye before the shields of the Covenant craft shattered with an electrical spark.

The thinner hull of the alien starfighter simply melted and was cored through as the beams travelled the length of the fighter, hitting the main drive.

The Covenant fighter turned into a smear in space just as two quick streams of bluish orange tracers tracked another fighter, originating out of Starbucks line of sight.

They weren't auto cannon rounds, they travelled at a much higher speed as the two streams connected with another Covenant fighter that was hot on the tail of a hapless Viper, readying to burn it from the sky. The shields of the craft resisted for half of a second before they collapsed and the fighter beneath was shredded.

"What the hell!?"

"I've got a contact! Unknown contact thirty clicks off of the _Galactica's _stern!" Lee shouted as she flipped over her Viper to look at the craft that was barely within her visual range, using her flight suit's built in 2x magnification to zoom in more.

"I've barely got it on scanners!" another Viper pilot shouted as Starbuck observed this new combatant.

If it wasn't coming over the moon at such a low orbit she would not have been able to see the stark black form of the craft.

She hadn't seen anything like it before.

It looked almost like it had wings, like a bird of prey or one of those manta ray sea creatures that lived in the seas of Picon. It was no larger than a gunboat and she could barely make out the two obvious weapons emplacements, two turrets of unknown design that were spitting out high velocity projectiles at the Covenant fighters with much greater effect than the auto cannons of _Galactica_.

On the prow of the vessel she could just barely make out writing on its side.

It took a second for her to remember where she had seen the un readable scribbling before.

"Oh frak…"

_**Battlestar Galactica**_

_**Combat Information Center**_

"I swear it just came out of no where. I didn't see it until it started firing!" Geata nearly shouted back at a no furious Colonel Tigh as Adama injected himself into the shouting match.

"Shut it both of you!" he roared as he glared down his glasses at the two.

"Load up our rear turrets and have them target that thing. Get me a lock but DO NOT FIRE!"

"Yes sir. Our DRADIS is having difficulty locking on to them sir." Geata replied as the havoc in the CIC continued while more shouts for orders and status reports echoed in the cavernous CIC.

"Then tell them to go visual but to not fire!"

Outside of the ship more Covenant fighters harassed the Battlestar, its defensive fire just barely holding the Covenant ships back as Admiral Corman's shuttle finally made a hard landing in the starboard flight pod.

"Corman is aboard!" Dee cried as Adama nodded to TIgh.

"Full military thrust. Get us to the far side of the moon and try and contact that thing."

"Yes sir."

"Sir those Covenant gunboats are closing fast Twenty of them! I think they may be trying to get aboard the port side flight pod!"

"Focus fire on them!" Tight ordered before Adama even had the chance.

Fire from multiple Point Defense Turrets on the port side of the Battlestar stopped as the turrets shifted and their DRADIS and gunners acquired the new targets.

That only lasted a second more as streams of orange traces flew towards the Covenant Dropshipts, known to the UNSC as Phantoms by their callsign.

The much thicker hulls of the Phantoms resisted the streams of 30m fire for far longer as the Covenant pilots began jinking and dodging, trying to throw off the aim as they never the less still kept coming.

"Come on." Adama breathed as one finally turned into an eyewatering explosion as it gave in to the fire, followed by a second as they disappeared from DRADIS.

They couldn't possibly shoot them all down.

"ETA ten seconds!" Tigh called out as another Dropship was gunned down by Galactica's defenses and another was speared by a flight of Vipers, riddling it with holes.

Then another dropship disappeared from the screen as Dee chimed in.

"That unknown ship took that one out with lasers and high velocity cannon fire our Vipers are reporting."

"Can someone get me a link to those people!?" Tigh shouted as Adama turned to Geata.

"Get the Marines ready. We are about to have hostile boarders."

_**UNSC Wink of An Eye**_

"Pulse lasers re-engaging. Helix Guns at 95 percent ammunition capacity. Engaging Seraphs. Engines at 30 percent and Reactor at seventy percent." Fallon's avatar announced as the AI ran the ship's weapons, knocking another Covenant fighter out of the sky with a burst of hyper accurate magnetically accelerated slugs.

"We are being targeted by the Battlestar!" Lieutenant Haverson shouted as two of the large turrets on the dorsal side of the huge ship swung around to face the tiny UNSC Prowler.

"Targeting with low bandwith Radar and Lidar. Most waves are being absorbed by the hull. However even if those cannons are electro-thermal –chemical guns like our MA6 rifles and not railgun mounts they still will shatter us at this range." Fallon calmly noted with non-challonce as the AI used the Prowler's minimal weapons to knock another Seraph out of the skies.

Branson was grateful the Covenant pilots were focused on the Battlestar, as the Prowler wouldn't last a minute from an attack by a wing of Seraphs.

"The Covenant fighters are breaking off from the Battlestar and pulling away…" Haverson called out before he cursed.

"Fuck! Those Phantoms managed to land inside the starboard hanger pod of the _Galactica_! They've been boarded!"

Commander Branson looked on with concern.

If the Colonials had fared poorly against a team of ODSTs and a Spartan, he could only imagine how they would fare against 8 foot tall aliens with energy weapons and personal shields.

"Covenant warship is still closing, range 150,000 kilometers. CCS class Battlecruiser."

Branson looked out the viewscreens as the dart like Colonial fighters or "Vipers" regrouped around the Battlestar as the huge Colonial vessel's main drives lit up as the ship accelerated.

"He is going to slingshot around the moon and into deep space towards the Colonial response fleet." Branson noted aloud as the holographic screen in front of him plotted the Battlestar's course.

However he still frowned.

That Covenant ship was still much faster and could hit them accurately from 120,000 kilometers or more, even with increased speed from the slingshot of the moon's gravity.

They would be cutting it close.

"Matching speed." Haverson chimed as the UNSC Prowler easily kept up.

"Sir! I've got a radio signal from the _Galactica_. They are hailing!" the comms officer cried out as Branson nodded to her and Fallon.

"Patch him through."

The speakers in the cramped bridge of the _Wink of an Eye_ came to life as the tinny sounding voice of the Colonial came through the speaker with the sound of a command center in crisis mode in the background.

"Translators up and running." Fallon noted as the garbled unintelligible voice morphed into English.

"…._is Rear Admiral Adama of the Battlestar Galactica to unknown vessel. Please respond. We are currently engaged with hostile boarders on multiple decks and dealing with multiple hull breaches. We are fleeing the battlezone and sling shoting around the moon Minos. State your intentions or you will be fired upon."_

Branson looked at the crew in the CIC as on the forward viewscreen another of the Battlestars aft main turrets swiveled to track him.

He turned to Fallon

"You have control over our emergency boosters. If you detect that those main guns are going to fire the micro second you do get us out of the way if you can and launch one of our remaining nukes at them. Give me a link to this Adama."

Fallon sternly nodded as he did so.

"You are on."

Branson took a deep breath an prayed these people didn't immediately try to blow him apart once they heard who they was.

"This is Commander Steven Branson of the United Nations Space Command vessel _Wink of an Eye_. We wish to assist in your conflict against the Covenant threat."

_**CIC Battlestar Galactica**_

Silence took over the CIC for several seconds as Adama winced as Tigh all but shouted.

"UNSC frakkers! Do we have a shot!"

"DO NOT FIRE ON THEM!" Adama all but shouted at the top of his lungs as the Colonel took a surprise step back.

Adama looked at the crew as yet more status alerts rang out.

The alien soldiers had already nearly taken control of the entire starboard flight pod and the first reports from the Marines did not look pretty.

He put the handset back up to his ear.

"Commander Branson. We have boarders that our threating our control of this ship, and our initial reports do not look good. Just how can your….ship.. help us?"

Tigh grabbed his shoulder and whispered into his other ear.

"You are going to trust the Earthers?"

"We don't really have a choice do we? They know how to fight the Covenant better than we do." He replied simply as the handset again crackled to life.

"We have a team that is inbound on your ship, Starboard flight pod. They are higly trained and heavily armed, but warn your people that they are coming. They will not react well to being shot at by your people." The Earther commander replied with a veiled threat.

Adama took one last look at Tigh before nodding.

"Alright we will take whatever help you can give us."

"Good," the UNSC Commander replied, "They are heading over now."

Geata called out just as a contact from the diminutive UNSC ship came on the DRADIS…no three contacts.

"Sir I have three contacts that just left from the UNSC ship and our heading for our starboard flight pod!"

"His team of soldiers? Are they spacejumping? "

_**Wink of An Eye**_

Fallon's avatar nodded in satisfaction as he turned to Branson.

"Grey Team is away."


End file.
